W0^ 



m^y 



""_^:-r^:t:)^if 






^m 



m 



m 




THE WORKS OF LEWIS MORRIS 




= HOTO. W.& D.DQWNEIY, EBURYS'' 



PHOTOGRAVUnC BY AMMAN! S: SV 



THE WORKS 



OF 



LEWIS MORRIS 



NEW YORK 
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 

15 EAST i6th STREET 
1890 



f^s 



Lo 



.f^V' 



/^^sy 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Songs of Two Worlds — First Series 
(1872): 

Soul-Music I 

Love's Mirror 2 

On a Young Poet 2 

To the Setting Sun 3 

Tiie Treasure of Hope 4 

The Legend of Faith 5 

r.ytheSea 5 

Voices 7 

Weakness made Strong 9 

Waking 10 

At Havre de Grace n 

When I am Dead ^3 

Love's Suicide 14 

The River of Life 14 



A Heathen Hymn 

In Trafalgar Square .... 

Watch 

Drowned 

The Wanderer 

The Weary River 

Truth in Falsehood 

Two Voyages 

The Wise Rule 

The Voice of One crying . • • 

ther Days 

The True Man 4' 

Passing 4^ 

Fetters 43 

Rich and Wise 43 

Love in Death 43 

Dear Little Hand 46 

Still Waters 46 

In Regent Street 48 



I'AGF. 

Songs of Two Worlds— First Series 
(1S72) — continued. 

From the Desert 49 

Dumb 49 

Faith without Sight 52 

Caged 52 

Too much Knowledge 53 

On a Flight of Lady-Birds .... 54 

On an Old Minster 55 

The Bitter Harvest 57 

j Of Love and Sleep 57 

Blind 59 

To her Picture 60 

The Return 61 

For Ever 61 

Behind the Veil 62 

Visions 63 

Doubt 64 

St. David's Head 64 

In Volhynia 66 

The Living Past 66 

Changes 67 

Alone 67 

Sea Voices 68 

Berlin, 1S71 69 

The Beacon 69 

The Garden of Regret 70 

Songs of Two Worlds— Second Series 

(1874): 

To an Unknown Poet 72 

Comfort 73 

Song 74 

Oh, Snows so Pure ! 74 

The Beginnings of Faith 75 

A Memory 75 



VI 



CONTENTS, 



PAGE 

Songs of Two Worlds — Second Series 
(1874) — continued. 

The New Order 75 

At Midnight 77 

Nemesis 78 

To a Child of Fancy 79 

Song 79 

The Organ- Boy 80 

Processions S2 

For Life 83 

In the Park 84 

Loss and Gain 85 

Song 85 

The Apology 85 

Song 90 

As in a Picture 90 

At an Almshouse . • 90 

A Yorkshire River 91 

For Judgment 91 

Ode on a Fair Spring INIorning ... 92 

Love Triumphant . 95 

Tolerance 96 

A Hymn in Time of Idols 96 

On a Modern Painted Window ... 98 

A Midsummer Night 98 

Good in Everything 99 

The Reply 99 

The Touchstone 99 

Nothing Lost 102 

The Hidden Self 103 

Marching 103 

Courage ! 104 

Gilbert Beckett and the Fair Saracen . 104 

' To a Child of Fancy 107 

A Cynic's Day-Dreani 108 

To a Lost Love no 

In Memory of a Friend m 

It shall be Well 112 

A Remonstrance 112 

Songs of Two Worlds — Third Series 

(1875) : 

Song 113 

The Home Altar 114 

The Voyage "4 

The Food of Song 115 

The Youth of Thought "6 

Song 118 

At Chambers "9 

Evensong 120 

Song 135 

At Last 136 

Song 137 



PAGE 

Songs of Two Worlds — Third Series 
(1875) — continued. 

The Dialogue T38 

The Birth of Verse 138 

Song 139 

The Enigma 139 

To the Tormentors .141 

Children of the Street 143 

Souls in Prison 146 

A Separation Deed 147 

Song 149 

Frederic 149 

To my Motherland 150 

The Epic of Hades : 

Book I. — Tartarus 152 

Tantalus 153 

Phaedra 159 

Sisyphus 165 

Clytaemnestra 170 

Book II.— Hades -.177 

Marsyas 178 

Andromeda 183 

Actjeon 188 

Helen 192 

luirydice 201 

Orpheus 203 

Deianeira 204 

Laocoon 20S 

Narcissus 211 

Medusa . 215 

Adonis 219 

Persephone 221 

Endymion 224 

Psyche 227 

Book III.— Olympus 231 

Artemis 233 

Herakles 235 

Aphrodite 236 

Athene 239 

Here 240 

Apollo 242 

Zeus 245 

GWEN 248 

The Ode of Life : 

The Ode of Creation 286 

The Ode of Infancy 288 

The Ode of Childhood ...... 290 

The Ode of Youth 292 

The Ode of Love 296 

The Ode of Perfect Years 29S 

The Ode of Good 307 



CONTENTS. 



Vll 



PAGE 

The Ode of "Lw^— continued. 

The Ode of Evil 30S 

The Ode of Age 310 

The Ode of Decline 312 

The Ode of Change 314 

Songs Unsung : 

Pictures— 1 316 

The Lesson of Time 318 

Vendredi Saint 319 

" No more, no more " 322 

The New Creed 322 

A Great Gulf 328 

One Day 329 

Seasons 329 

The Pathos of Art 330 

In the Strand 33° 

Coelum non Animum 331 

Niobe 332 

Pictures — II 336 

A Night in Naples 336 

Life 338 

Cradled in Music 338 

Odatis 339 

In Wild Wales 346 

Suffrages 348 

Look out, O Love 351 

Clytsemnestra in Paris 351 

Pictures — III 360 

Confession 361 

Love Unchanged 362 

At the End 363 

Three Breton Poems : 

I. The Orphan Girl of Lannion . . 363 

II. The Foster Brother . . . .365 

III. Azenor 368 

Gycia: a Tragedy 371 

Songs of Britain : 
On a Thrush singing in Autumn . . . 433 
In a Country Church 434 



PAGE 

Songs of Britain — continued. 

In Spring-Tide . 436 

In Autumn 436 

j A Midsummer Night's Dream . . . 437 
An English Idyll 439 

I Anima Mundi 440 

In Pembrokeshire, 1886 441 

Easter-Tide 442 

Ghosts 443 

Song 444 

From Wild Wales : 

I. Llyn y Morwynion .... 444 
II. The Physiciafns of Myddfai . . 448 
III. The Curse of Pantannas . . . 458 

To a Gay Company 467 

From Juvenal 46S 

Ightham INIote 469 

The Secret of Things 470 

Oh, Earth ! . . ^ 472 

On a Birthday 472 

In a Laboratory 473 

The Summons 473 

Silvern Speech 474 

The Obelisk 475 

A Song of Empire 476 

Temperance 482 

The Imperial Institute 483 

David Gvvyn 484 

Song 4S7 

The Albatross 488 

In a Great Lady's Album 488 

On a Silver Wedding 489 

The Invincible Armada, 1588 .... 491 
Ode sung at the First Co-operative 

Festival 495 

To John Bright 496 

On Robert Blake 497 

To Lord Tennyson ....... 497 

To her Majesty the Queen . . . .498 

Venite Procidamus 499 



SONGS OF TWO WORLDS. 

FIRST SERIES (1872). 



SOUL-MUSIC. 

]\Iv soul ib as a bird 
Singing in fair weather, 
Deep in shady woodlands through the 
evening's dewy cahn ; 
Every glossy feather 
On her full throat stirred, 
As she pours out, rapt, unconscious, all 
the sweetness of her psalm ; 
Mounting high, and higher, higher, 
Soaring now, now falling, dying ; 
Now through silvery pauses sigh- 
ing ; 
Throbbing now with joyous strife, 
xVnd rushing tides of love and life, 
Till some ray of heavenly fire 
Shot obliquely through the shade, 
Pierces her ; and lo ! the strain 
Of the music she has made 
Fills her with a sudden pain. 

Then she forgets to sing 
Her former songs of gladness ; 
Sitting mute in silence sweeter than the 
old forgotten lays ; 
Till anon some note of sadness, 
Long-drawn, languishing. 
Faint at first, swells onward slowly to 
a subtler depth of praise. 



^\.s the low, wild> minor, broken 
By the ghosts of gayer fancies, 
Like a rippling stream advances. 
Till the full tide grown too deep, 
Whispers first, then falls asleep. 
Then, as souls with no word spoken 
Grow together, she, mute and still, 
Thrills through with a secret voice, 
Which the farthest heaven can fill. 
And constrains her to rejoice. 

And the passer-by who hears. 
Not the burst of pleasure, 

Swelling upward, sweet, spontaneous, 
to the portals of the sky, 
But a chastened measure, 
Low and full of tears ; 

And anon the voiceless silence, when 
the last notes sink and die, 
Deems some influence malign. 
Checks the current of her song ; 
For that none are happy long. 
Nay ; but to the rapt soul conie 
Sounds that strike the singer dumb. 
And the silence is Divine ; 
For when heaven gives back the 

strain. 
All its joyous tones are o'er ; 
F'irst the low sweet notes of pain, 
Then, the singer sings no more. 
B 



LOVE'S MIRROR— ON A YOUNG FOET. 



LOVES MIRROR. 

I SEE myself reflected in thine eyes, 
The dainty mirrors set in golden flame 
Of eyelash, quiver with a sweet sur- 
prise, 
And most ingenuous shame. 

Like Eve, who hid her from the dread 

command 
Deep in the dewy blooms of paradise ; 
So thy shy soul, love calling, fears to 

stand 
Discovered at thine eyes. 

Or, like a tender little fawn, which lies 
Asleep amid the fern, and waking, 

hears 
Some careless footstep drawing near, 

and flies, 
Yet knows not what she fears : 

So shrinks thy soul ; but, dearest, shrink 

not so ; 
Look thou into mine eyes as I in 

thine : 
So our reflected souls shall meet and 

grow, 
And each with each combine 

In something nobler ; as when one has 

laid 
Opposite mirrors on a cottage wall ; 
And lo ! the never-ending colonnade, 
The vast palatial hall. 

So our twin souls, by one swc^t suicide. 
Shall fade into an essence more sub- 
lime ; 
Living through death, and dying glori- 
fied, 
Beyond the touch of time. 



ON A YOUNG POET. 

Here lay him down in peace to take 

his rest. 
Who tired of singing ere the day was 

done. 
A little time, a little, beneath the sun, 
He tarried and gave forth his artless 

song; 
The bird that sings with tlie dawn, 

sings not for long. 
Only when dew is on the grass his 

breast 
Quivers, but his voice is silent long ere 

noon. 
So sang he once, but might not long 

sustain 
The high pure note of youth, for soon, 

too soon ! 
He ceased to know the sweet creative 

pain 
Made still one voice, amid the clamorous 

strife, 
And proved no more the joys or pains 

of life. 

And better so than that his voice should 

fail, 
And sink to earth, and lose its heaven- 

lier tone ; 
Perchance, if he had stayed, the sad 

world's moan. 
The long low discord of incessant 

wrong, 
Had marred the perfect cadence of his 

song. 
And made a grosser music to prevail. 
But now it falls as pure upon the ear. 
As sings the brown bird to the star of 

eve, 
Or child's voice in grey minster quiring 

clear. 



TO THE SETTING SUN. 



Rather then, give we thanks for him 

than grieve. 
Thoughts of pure joys which but in 

memory live, 
More joy than lower present joys can 

give. 

For him, deep rest or high spontaneous 

strains ; 
For us, fierce strife and low laborious 

song; 
For him, truth's face shining out clear 

and strong ; 
For us, half lights, thick clouds, and 

darkling days. 
No longer walks his soul in mortal 

ways, 
Nor thinks our thoughts, nor feels our 

joys or pains 
Nor doubts our doubts, nor any more 

pursues, 
Knowing all things, the far-off search- 
less cause ; 
Nor thrills with art, or nature's fairest 

hues, 
Gazing on absolute beauty's inmost 

laws ; 
Or lies for ever sunk in dreamless sleep, 
Nor recks of us ; — and therefore 'tis we 

weep. 

But surely if he sleep, some fair faint 
dream. 

Some still small whisper from his an- 
cient home, 

Not joy, nor pain, but mixt of each 
shall come ; 

Or if he wake, the thought of earthly 
days 

Shall add a tender sweetness to his 
praise ; 

Tempering the unbroken joyance of his 
theme. 



And by-and-by the time shall come 

when we, 
Laden with all our lives, once more 

shall meet, 
Like friends, who after infinite wastes 

of sea. 
Look in each other's eyes ; and lo ! the 

sweet 
Sad fount of memory to its depths is 

stirred, 
And the past lives again, without a 

word. 

Mourn not for him ! perchance he lends 

his voice 
To swell the fulness of the eternal 

psalm ; 
Or haply, wrapt in nature's holy 

calm. 
Safe hid within the fruitful womb of 

earth, 
He ripens slowly to a higher birth. 
Mourn not for him ! but let your souls 

rejoice. 
We know not what we shall be, but arc 

sure 
The spark once kindled by the eternal 

breath, 
Goes not out quite, but somewhere 

doth endure 
In that strange life we blindly christen 

death. 
Somewhere he is, though where we can- 
not tell ; 
But wheresoe'er God hides him, it is 

well. 



TO THE SETTING SUN. 

Stay, O sweet day, nor fleet so fast 
away 
For now it is that life revives again. 



ThE TREASURE OF HOPE. 



As the red tyrant sinks beneath the 


For, hark ! the chime throbs from 


hill ; 


the darkling tower ; 


And now soft dews refresh the arid 


Soon for the last time shall my love be 


plain ; 


here : 


And now the fair bird's voice begins to 


Fair day, renew thy rays for one 


thrill ; 


brief hour. 


Willi hidden dolours niakin^g sweet 


sweet day, tarry for us, tarry near ; 


her strain 


To-morrow, love and time will lose 


And wakes the woods that all day were 


their power, 


so still. 


And sighs be mine, and the unbidden 




tear. 


Slay, sweet day, nor fleet so fast 




away ; 


Stay, O sweet day, nor fleet so fa?-t 


For now the rose and all fair flowers 


away. 


that blow 


But, ah ! thou may'st not ; in the 


C;ive out sweet odours to the perfumed 


far-off west 


air, 


Impatient lovers weary till you rise ; 


And the white palace marbles blush 


Or may be caring naught thou 


and glow, 


traversest 


And the low, ivy-hidden cot shows 


The plains betwixt thee and thy final 


fair. 


skies : 


Why are time's feet so swift, and 


Go, then ; though darkness come. 


ours so slow ? 


we shall be blest, 


Haste, laggard ! night will fall ere you 


Keeping sweet daylight, in each other's 


are there. 


eyes. 


Stay, sweet day, nor llect so fast 




away ; 


THE TREASURE OF HOPE. 


Soon the pale full-fiiccd moon will 




slowly climb 


FAIR bird, singing in the woods, 


Up the steep sky and quench the btar 


To the rising and the setting sun. 


of love. 


Does ever any throb of pain 


Moonlight is fair, but fairer far the 


Thrill through thee ere thy song bo 


time 


done : 


When through the leaves the dying 


Because the summer fleets so fast ; 


shafts above 


Because the autumn fades so scon ; 


Slope, and the minster sounds its 


Because the deadly winter treads 


curfew chime, 


So closely on the steps of June? 


And the long shadows lengthen through 




the grove. 


sweet maid, opening like a rose 




In love's mysterious, honeyed air. 


Slay, sweet day, nor lleet so fast 


Dost think sometimes the day will come 


away ; 


When thou shall be no longer fair : 



THE LEGEND OF FAITH— BY THE SEA. 



When love will leave thee and pass on 
To younger and to brighter eyes ; 

And thou shalt live unloved, alone, 
A dull life, only dowered with sighs ? 

O brave youth, panting for the fight, 

To conquer wrong and win thee fame, 
Dost see thyself grown old and spent, 

And thine a still unhonoured name : 
When all thy hopes have come to naught, 

And all thy fair schemes droop and 
pine 
And wrong still lifts her hydra heads 

To fall to younger arms than thine ? 

Nay ; song and love and lofty aims 

May never be where faith is not ; 
Strong souls within the present live ; 

The future veiled, — the past forgot : 
('.rasping what is, with hands of steel, 

They bend what shall be, to their will ; 
And blind alike to doubt and dread, 

The End, for which they are, fulfil. 



THE LEGEND OF FAITH. 

They say the Lord of time and all the 
worlds, 

Came to us once, a feeble, new-born 
child ; 

All-wise, yet dumb ; weak, though om- 
nipotent : 

Surely a heaven-sent vision, for it tells 

How innocence is godlike. And the 
Lord 

Renews, through childhood, to our 
world-dimmed eyes, 

The half forgotten splendours of the 
skies. 

And because motherhood is sacreder 
And purer far than any fatherhood. 



White flowers are fairer than red fruit, 
and sense 

Brings some retributive pain ; the vir- 
gin queen 

Sits 'mid the stars, and cloistered courts 
are filled 

With vain regrets, dead lives, and 
secret sighs. 

And the long pain of weary litanies. 

And because we, who stand upon the 

shore. 
See the cold wave sweep up and take 

with it 
White spotless souls, and others lightly 

soiled. 
Yet with no stain God deems indelible : 
These are His saints mighty to intercede, 
Those in some dim far country tarry, 

and there 
Are purified ; and both are reached by 

prayer. 

And as the faith once given changes not, 
But we are weak as water ; yet is life 
A process, and where growth is not is 

death. 
God gave His priests infallible power to 

tell 
The true faith as it is, and how it grew : 
And lo ! the monstrous cycle shows 

complete, 
And the Church brings the nations to 

her feet. 



BY THE SEA. 

A LITTLE country churchyard, 
On the verge of a cliff by the sea ; 

Ah ! the thoughts of the long years past 
and gone 
That the vision brings back to me. 



BY THE SEA. 



For two ways led from the village, — 

One, by the rippled sands, 
With their pink shells fresh from the 
ebbing wave 

For childish little hands. 

And one 'mid the heath, and the 
threat'ning 

Loud bees with the yellow thighs. 
And, twinkling out of the golden furze, 

The marvellous butterflies. 

And the boom of the waves on the 
shingle, 
And the hymn of the lark to the sun ; 
Made Sabbath sounds of their own, ere 
the chime 
Of the church-going bell had begun, 

I remember the churchyard studded 
With peasants who loitered and read 

The sad little legends, half effaced. 
On the moss-grown tombs of the 
dead. 

And the gay graves of little children. 

Fashioned like tiny cots ; 
With their rosemary and southernwood, 

And blue-eyed forget-me-nots. 

Till the bell by degrees grew impatient, 
Then ceased as the parsonage door 

Opened wide for the surpliced vicar. 
And we loitered and talked no more. 

I remember the cool, dim chancel. 
And the drowsy hum of the prayers ; 

And the rude psalms vol lied from sea- 
faring throats 
As if to take heaven unawares. 

Till, when sermon-time came, by per- 
mission 
We stole out among the graves. 



And saw the great ocean a-blaze in the 
sun, 
And heard the deep roar of the waves. 

And clung very close together, 

As we spelt out with wonder and 
tears, 
How a boy lay beneath who was 
drowned long ago. 
And was " Aged eleven years." 

And heard, with a new-born terror, 
The first surge of the infinite Sea, 

Whose hither-shore is the shore of 
Death, 
And whose further, the Life to be. 

" Did the sea swallow up little children ? 

Could God see the wickedness done? 

Nor spare one swift-winged seraph to 

save 

From the thousands around His 

throne ? " 

"Was he still scarce older than we 
were. 

Still only a boy of eleven ? 
Were child-angels children always 

\\\ the beautiful courts of heaven ? " 

Ah me ! of those childish dreamers, 
One has solved the dark riddle since 
then : 
And knows the dread secret which 
none may know 
Who walk in the ways of men. 

The other has seen the splendour 

And mystery fading away ; 
Too wise or too dull to take thought or 
care 
For aught but the needs of the 
day. 



VOICES. 





Battling with wrong ; or passionate seer 


VOICES. 


of God 




Scathing with tongue of fire the hollow 


Oh ! sometimes when the solemn organ 


shows. 


rolls 


The vain deceits of men ; or law-giver, 


Its stream of sound down gray historic 


Parting in thunder from the burning 


aisles ; 


hill 


Or the full, high-pitched struggling 


W^ith face aflame ; or with fierce rush 


symphony 


of wings 


Pursues the fleeting melody in vain : 


And blazing brand, upon the crest of 


Like a fawn through shadowy groves, 


Sin, 


or heroine 


The swift archangel swooping ; or the 


Voiced like a lark, pours out in burning 


roll 


song 


Which follows on the lightning ; — all 


Iler love or grief; or when, to the 


are there 


rising stars 


In that great hurry of sound. 


Linked village maidens chant the hymn 


And then the voice 


of eve ; 


Grows thinner like a lark's, and soars 


Or Sabbath concourse, flushed and 


and soars, 


dewy-eyed 


And mounts in circles, higher, higher, 


Booms its full bass ; or before tasks 


higher, 


begun, 


Up to heaven's gate, and lo ! the un- 


Fresh childish voices sanctify the morn : 


earthly song 


My eyes grow full, my heart forgets to 


Thrills some fine inner chord, and the 


beat. 


swift soul, 


What is this mystic yearning fills my 


Eager and fluttering like a prisoned 


being ? 


bird, 




Breaks from its cage, and soars aloft to 


Hark ! the low music wakes, and soft 


join 


and slow 


The enfranchised sound, and for a 


Wanders at will through flowery fields 


moment seems 


of sound ; 


To touch on some dim border-land of 


Climbs gentle hills, and sinks in sunny 


being, 


vales, 


Full of high thought and glorious 


And stoops to cull sweet way-side 


enterprise 


blooms, and weaves 


And vague creative fancies, till at 


A dainty garland ; then, grown tired, 


length 


casts down 


Waxed grosser than the thin ethereal 


With careless hand the fragrant coronal, 


air. 


And child-like sings itself to sleep. 


It sinks to earth again. 


Anon 


And then a strain 


The loud strain rises like a strong knight 


Sober as is the tender voice of home. 


armed, 


Unbroken like a gracious life, and lo 



voice: 



Young cliildren sit around me, and tlie 

love 
I never knew is mine, and so my 

eyes 
Grow full, and all my being is thrilled 

with tears. 

What is this strange new life, this finer 

sense. 
This passionate exaltation, which doth 

force 
Like the weird Indian juggler, instantly 
My soul from seed to flower, from 

flower to fruit, 
Which lifts me out of self, and bids me 

tread 
Without a word, on dim aerial peaks. 
Impossible else, and rise to glorious 

thoughts, 
High hopes, and inarticulate fantasies 
Denied to soberer hours? No spoken 

thought 
Of bard or seer can mount so far, or 

lift 
The soul to such transcendent heights, 

or work 
So strong a spell of love, or roll along 
- Such passionate troubled depths. No 

painter's hand 
Can limn so clear, the luminous air 

serene 
Of Paradise, the halcyon deep, the 

calm 
Of the eternal snows, the eddy and 

whirl 
Of mortal fight, the furious flood let 

loose 
From interlacing hills, the storm which 

glooms 
Over the shoreless sea. Our speech too 

oft 
Is bound and fettered by such nan ow 

laws, 



That words which to one nation pierce 

the heart. 
To another are but senseless sounds, or 

weak 
And powerless to stir the soul ; but this 
Speaks with a common tongue, uses a 

speech 
Which all may understand, or if it berr 
Some seeds of difference in it, only 

such 
As separates gracious sisters, like in 

form, 
But one by gayer fancies touched, and 

one 
Rapt by sweet graver thoughts alono, 

and both 
Mighty to reacli the changing moods of 

the soul. 
Or grave or gay, and though sometimes 

they be 
Mated with unintelligible words, 
Or feeble and unworthy, yet can lend 
A charm to gild the worthless utterance. 
And wing the sordid chrysalis to float 
Amid the shining stars. 

Oh strange sweet power^ 
Ineffable, oh gracious influence, 
I know not whence thou art, but this 

I know. 
Thou boldest in thy hand the silver key 
That can unlock the sacred fount of 

tears, 
Which falling make life green ; the 

hidden spring 
Of purer fancies and high sympathies • 
No mirth is thine, thou art too high U-t 

mirth, — 
Like Him who wept but siniled not • 

mirth is born 
On the low plains of thoughts bc^t 

reached by words. 
But those who scale the untrodden 

mountain peak, 



JVEAKXESS MADE STROXG. 



Or sway upon the trembling spire, are 

far 
From laughter ; so thy gracious power 

divine, 
Not sad but solemn, stirs the well of 

tears. 
But not mirth's shallow spring : tears 

are divine, 
But mirth is of the earth, a creature 

born 
Of careless youth and joyance ; satisfied 
With that which is ; parched by no 

nobler thirst 
For that which might be ; pained by 

no regret 
For that which was, but is not : but for 

thee. 
Oh, fair mysterious power, the whole 

great scheme 
Lies open like a book ; and if the 

charm 
Of its high beauty makes thee some- 
times gay, 
Yet 'tis an awful joy, so mixed with 

thought, 
That even Mirth grows grave, and 

evermore 
The myriad possibilities unfulfilled, 
The problem of Creation, the immense 
Impenetrable depths of thought, the 

vague 
Perplexities of being, touch thy lips 
And keep thee solemn always. 

Oh, fair voice. 
Oh virginal, sweet interpreter, reveal 
Our inner selves to us, lay bare the 

springs, 
The hidden depths of life, the high 

desires 
Which kirk there unsuspected, the 

remorse 
Which never woke before ; unclothe 

the soul 



Of this its shroud of sense, and let it 

mount, 
On the harmonious beat of thy light 

wings, 
ITp to those heights where life is so 

attuned, 
So pure and self-concordant ; filled ^o 

deep 
With such pervading beauty that no 

voice 
Mars the unheard ineffable harmony, 
And o'er white plain and breathless 

summit reigns 
A silence sweeter than the sweetest 

sound. 



WEAKNESS MADE STRONG. 

If I were poor and weak, 

Bankrupt of hope, and desolate of 
love ; 
Without a tongue to speak 

The strange dumb thoughts of thee 
which through me move ; 
Then would I freely venture, sweet. 
To cast my soul down at thy feet. 

Or were I proud and great ; 

Were all men envious, and all women 
kind. 
And yet my high estate 

Showed poor beside the riches of my 
mind : 
Then would I boldly stoop, to rise 
Up to the height of thy dear eyes. 

But being not weak nor strong, 
Cast in the common mould of 
coarser clay ; 
Sure 'twere to do thee wrong 

To set my humble homage in thy 
wa\\ 



lO 



WAKING. 



And cloud thy sunny morn, which I 


It may be she is seated 'mid the 


would fain 


throng. 


Keep clear and fair, with my poor 


Crowned with the flowers of life and 


private pain. 


youth and health ; 




Thrilled through by breathing art or 


Only since love and I are so ingrown, 


passionate song. 


That for my weakness is my love so 


Or faint with hot pursuit of fame or 


strong; 


wealth ; 


And scarce I know what love's is, what 


Rapt by the glorious thoughts of saints 


mine own, 


or seers, 


Nor whether love or I inspire my 


Or radiant with the blessed dew of 


song: 


tears. 


Take thou my weakness to thy strength, 




and give 


And then the wicket swings without a 


Strength to my weakness, sweet, and 


sound, 


bid me live. 


And lo ! a ghostly presence, pale and 




gray,— 




Sad eyes which dwell not on the things 


WAKING. 


around, 




But gaze for ever on the Far-ofif 


Open, my soul, thy stately portals 


Day! 


wide ; 


Then a low voice, whispering, " Thy 


Open full wide, and let thy King 
come in ! 


King is come ; 


Rejoice, be glad, for here he makes 


How shall he come ? In royal pomp 


his home." 


and pride, 




Ushered by braying trumpets' clamor- 


Then rises she and hastens to the 


ous din ; 


gate, — 


Clothed round with purple ; crowned 


Her royal gate, and there she casts 


with burning gold : 


her down : 


A kingly presence, glorious to behold ? 


Prone at his feet bewails her low 




estate. 


Nay ; for he is no mortal king, to come 


Yet prays him he will enter to his 


With trumpet peals and crowds and 


own ! 


garish state ; 


Spurns from her all her robes of pride, 


Bat silent to the soul he makes his 


and stands. 


home, 


Knowing her shame, to do her Lord's 


He enters by some lowly postern 


commands, 


gate ! 




And she, within her chambers far with- 


Whom with a touch he fashions for her 


drawn, 


part ; 


Cries like the wakeful bird that greets 


Dowers with the precious gifts of bard 


the dawn. 


or sage ; 



AT HAVRE DE GRACE. 



The hand to tix the dreams of deathless 

art, 
The imperial will, the patriot's noble 

rage : 
Or fills with such fine affluence of love, 
That she grows holy as the saints above. 

Then open, O my soul ! thy portals 

wide, 
Open, and let thy Lord and Ruler 

come ; 
Open, if haply he may here abide, 
And make within thee his eternal 

home. 
Open thy gates, thy halls, thine inmost 

shrine, 
Till all are flooded with the Light 

divine. 



AT HAVRE DE GRACE. 

Above the busy Norman town, 
The high precipitous sea-cliffs rise, 

And from their summit looking down 
The twin-lights shine with lustrous 
eyes; 

Far out upon the fields of foam, 

The first to greet the wanderer home. 

Man here has known at last to tame 

Nature's wild forces to his will ; 
Those are the lightning's fires which 
flame. 
From yon high towers with ray so 
still : 
And knowledge, piercing through the 

night 
Of time, has summoned forth the light. 

And there, hard by the lighthouse door. 
The earthly set by the divine ; 

At a stone's cast, or scarcely more, 
Rises a little pagan shrine, 



Where the rough seamen come to pray, 
And wives, for dear ones far away. 

There, on a starry orb, there stands 
A heavenly goddess, proud and fair ; 

No infant holds she in her hands 
Which must a queenly sceptre bear. 

Nay ; wonder not, for this is she 

Who rules the fury of the sea. 

Star of the sea, they call her, yet 
Liker to Here doth she show. 
Than Aphrodite, rising wet 

From the white waves, with limbs 
aglow. 
Calmer she seems, more pure and 

sweet. 
To the poor kneelers at her feet. 

Before her still the vestal fires 

Burn unextinguished day and night ; 

And the sweet frankincense expires 
And fair flowers blow, and gems are 
bright : 

For a great power in heaven is she. 

This star and goddess of the sea. 

Around the temple, everywhere, 

Rude tablets hung, attest her might ; 
Here the fierce surge she smooths, and 
there 
Darts downward on a bar of light ; 
To quench the blazing ship, or save 
The shipwrecked from the hungry 
wave. 

And sea-gifts round the shrine are laid. 
Poor offerings, costlier far than gold : 

Such as the earlier heathen made. 
To the twin Deities of old, — 

Toy ships, shells, coral, glittering spar. 

Brought here by grateful hands from 
far. 



12 



AT HAVRE DE GRACE. 



A very present help indeed, 

This goddess is to whom they bow ; 
We seek Thy face with hearts that 
bleed, 
And straining eyes, dread Lord ! but 
Thou 
Hidest Thyself so far aw^ay. 
Our thoughts scarce reach Thee as we 
pray. 

But is this she, whom the still voice 
Of angels greeted in the night ; 

Bidding the poor maid's heart rejoice. 
With visions hid from wiser sight : 

This heathen nymph, this tinselled 
queen. 

First of all mothers who have been ? 

Gross hearts and purblind eyes, to 
make 

An idol of a soul so sweet ! 
Could you no meaner essence take, 

No brazen image with clay feet ; 
No saint from out the crowd of lies, 
False signs and shameful prodigies ? 

For this one bears too great a name, 
Above all other women blest ; 

The blessed mother, — all her fame 
Is His who nestled to her breast : 

They do but dull her glory down, 

These childless arms, this earthly 
crown. 

Poor peasant mother ! scarce a word 
Thou spak'st, the long-drawn years 
retain ; 
Only thy womb once bare the Lord ; 
Only thou knew'st the joy, the 
pain. 
The high hope seeming quenched in 

blood 
That marked thy awful motherhood. 



No trace of all thy life remains. 
From Llis first childhood to the 
cross ; 

A life of little joys and pains. 
Of humble gain and trivial loss : 

Contented if the ewes should bear 

Twin lambs, or wheat w^ere full in ear. 

Or if sometimes the memory 

Of that dread message of the night 

Troubled thy soul, there came to thee 
New precious duties ; till the flight, 

The desert sands, the kneeling kings, 

Showed but as half-forgotten tilings. 

Or sometimes, may be, pondering 
deep 
On miracles of word and deed, 
Vague doubts across thy soul would 
creep, 
Still faithful to the older creed : 
Could this thy son indeed be He, 
This child who prattled at thy knee ? 

And of thy after-life, thy age. 

Thy death, no record ; not a line 

On all the fair historic page 

To mark the life these hold divine : 

Only some vague tradition, faint 

As the sick story of n saint. 

But thou no longer art to-day 

The sweet maid-mother, fair aiid 
pure ; 
Vast time-worn reverend temples gra}-, 

Throne thee in majesty obscure ; 
And long aisles stretch in mins'crs 

high, 
'Twixt thee, fair peasant, and the sky. 

They seek to honour thee, who art 
Beyond all else a mother indeed ; 



WHEN I AM DEAD. 



n 



^Vith hateful vows that blight the heart, 
With childless lives, and souls that 

bleed : 
As if their dull hymns' barren strain 
Could fill a mother with aught but 

pain I 

Tu the gross eartli they bind thee down 
With coils of fable, chain on chain ; 

I'"rom plague or war to save the town ; 
To give, or hold ; the sun, or rain ; 

To whirl through air a favourite 
shrine, — 

These are thy functions, and divine. 

And see, in long procession rise 
The fair Madonnas of all time ; ■ 

They gaze from sweet maternal eyes, 
The dreams of every Christian clime : 

lirown girls and icy queens, the breast 

^\nd childish lips proclaim them blest. 

Till as the gradual legend grew, 

Bora without stain, and scorning 
death ; 
Heavenward thou soarest through the 
blue, 
While saints and seers aspire beneath. : 
.\nd fancy-nurtured cam'st to be 
(Jueen over sky and earth and sea. 

Oh, sin 1 oh, shame ! oh, folly ! R.'s: ; 
Poor heathen, think to what you 
bow ; 
Consider, beyond God's equal skies. 
What pains that faithful soul must 
know, — 
She a poor peasant on the throne 
Raised for the Lord of Life, alone. 

O sweet ! O heart of hearts ! O pure 
Above all purest maids of earth ! 

O simple child, who didst endure 
The burden of that awful birth : 



Heart, that the keenest sword didst 

know, 
Soul bowed by alien loads of woe ! 

Sweet soul ! have pity ; intercede. 
Oh mother of mothers, pure and 
meek ; 
They know no evil, — rise and plead 
For these poor wandering souls and 
weak ; 
Tear off those pagan rags, and lead 
Their worship where 'tis due indeed. 

For wheresoever there is home. 

And mothers yearn with sacred 
love, 
There, since from Heaven itself they 
come. 
Are symbols of the life above : 
Again the sweet maid-mother mikl. 
Again the fair Eternal child. 



WHEN I AM DEAD. 

When I am dead and turned to 

dust. 
Let men say what they will, I care w^A 

aught ; 
Let them say I was careless, indolent, 
Wasted the precious hours in dreaming 

thought. 
Did not the good I might have done, 

but spent 
My soul upon myself, — sometimes let 

rise 
Thick mists of earth betwixt mc and 

the skies : 
What must be must. 

But not that I betrayed a trust ; 
Broke some girl's heart, and left her to 
her shame : 



14 



LOVE'S SUICIDE — THE RIVER OF LIFE. 



Sneered young souls out of faith ; rose 

by deceit ; 
Lifted by credulous mobs to wealth and 

fame ; 
Waxed fat while good men waned, by 

lie and cheat ; 
Cringed to the strong ; oppressed the 

poor and weak : 
When men say this, may some find 

voice to speak, 
Though I am dust. 



LOVES SUICIDE. 

Alas for me for that my love is dead ! 
Buried deep down, and may not rise 
again ; 
Self-murdered, vanished, gone beyond 
recall, 
And this is all my pain. 

'Tis not that she I loved is gone from 
me, 
She lives and grows more lovely day 
by day ; 
Not Death could kill my love, but 
though she lives, 
My love has died away. 

Nor was it that a form or face more fair 
Forswore my troth, for so my love 
had proved 
Eye-deep alone, not rooted in the soul; 
And 'twas not thus I loved. 

Nor that by too long dalliance with 
delight 
And recompense of love, my love had 
grown 
Surfeit with sweets, like some tired bee 
that flags 
'Mid roses over-blown. 



None of these slew my love, but some 
cold wind. 
Some chill of doubt, some shadowy 
dissidence. 
Born out of too great concord, did o'er- 
cloud 
Love's subtle inner sense. 

So one sweet changeless chord, too long 
sustained, 
Falls at its close into a lower tone : 
So the swift train, sped on the long, 
straight way. 
Sways, and is overthrown. 

For difference is the soul of life and 
love, 
And not the barren oneness weak 
souls prize : 
Rest springs from strife, and dissonant 
chords beget 
Divinest harmonies. 



THE RIVER OF LIFE. 

Bright with unnumbered laughters, 

and swollen by a thousand tears. 
Rushes along, through upland and low- 
land, the river of life ; 
Sometimes foaming and broken, and 

sometimes silent and slumbrous, 
Sometimes through rocky glens, and 

sometimes through flowery plains. 
Sometimes the mountains draw near, 

and the black depths swirl a/' 

their bases, 
Sometimes the limitless meads fade on 

the verge of the sky. 
Sometimes the forests stand round, and 

the great trees cast terrible 

shadows, 
Sometimes the golden wheat waves, and 

girls fill their pitchers and sing. 



A HEATHEN H\MN, 



15 



Ah\ays the same strange flow, through 
changes and chances unchanging, 

Always — ni youth and in age, in cahii 
and in tempest the same — 

^Vhether it sparkle transparent and 
give back the blue like a mirror, 

Or sweep on turbid with flood, and 
black with the garbage of 
towns — 

Whether the silvery scale of the min- 
now flash on the pebbles, 

Or whether the poisonous ooze cling 
for a shroud round the dead — 

Whether it struggle through shoals of 
white blooms and feathery 
gi-asses, 

Or bear on its bosom the hulls of ocean- 
tost navies — the same. 

Flow on, O m)'5tical river, flow on 

through desert and city ; 
Broken or smooth, flow onward into 

the Infinite sea. 
^^'ho knows what urges thee on, what 

dark laws and cosmical forces 
Stain thee or keep thee pure, and 

bring thee at last to thy goal ? 
What is the cause of thy rest or unrest, 

of thy foulness or pureness ? 
What is the secret of life, or the painful 

riddle of death ? 
^^"hy is it better to be than to cease, to 

flow on than to stagnate ? 
^^'hy is the river-stream sweet, while 

the sea is as bitter as gall ? 

Surely we know not at all, but the 

cycle of Being is eternal, 
Life is eternal as death, tears are eternal 

as joy. 
As the stream flowed, it will flow ; 

though 'tis sweet, yet the sea 

will be bitter : 



Foul it with filth, yet the deltas grow 

green and the ocean is clear. 
Always the sun and the winds will strike 

its broad surface and gather 
Some purer drops from its depths, to 

float in the clouds of the sky ; — 
Soon these shall fall once again, and 

replenish the full-flowing river. 
Roll round then, O mystical cycle ! 

flow onward, ineffable stream I 



A HEATHEN HYMN. 

Lord, the Giver of my days. 

My heart is ready, my heart is ready ; 

1 dare not hold my peace, nor pause. 
For I am fain to sing Thy praise. 

I praise Thee not, with impious pride, 
For that Thy partial hand has given 
Bounties of wealth or form or brain, 
Good gifts to other men denied. 

Nor weary Thee with blind request, 
For fancied goods Thy hand withholds*, 
I know not what to fear or hope, 
Nor aught but that Thy will is best. 

Not whence I come, nor whither I go. 
Nor wherefore I am here, I know ; 
Nor if my life's tale ends on earth, 
Or mounts to bliss, or sinks to woe. 

Nor know I aught of Thee, O Lord ; 
Behind the veil Thy face is hidden : 
We faint, and yet Thy face is hidden ; 
We cry, — Thou answerest not a word. 

But this I know, O Lord, Thou art, 
And by Thee I too live and am ; 
We stand together, face to face, 
Thou the great whole, and I the part. 



IN TRAFALGAR SQUARE. 



We stand together, soul to soul, 
Alone amidst Thy waste of worlds : 
Unchanged, though all creation fade, 
And Thy swift suns forget to roll. 

Wherefore, because my life is Thine, 
Because, without Thee I were not ; 
Because, as doth the sea, the sun. 
My nature gives back the Divine. 

Because my being with ceaseless flow 
Sets to Thee as the brook to the sea ; 
Turns to Thee, as the flower to the sun. 
And seeks what it may never know. 

Because, without me Thou hadst been 
For ever, seated midst Thy suns ; 
Marking the soulless cycles turn, 
Yet wert Thyself unknown, unseen. 

I praise Thee, everlasting Lord, 
In life and death, in heaven and hell : 
What care I, since indeed Thou art. 
And I the creature of Thy word. 

Only if such a thing may be : 
When all Thy infinite will is done, 
Take back the soul Thy breath has 

given. 
And let me lose myself in Thee. 



IN TRAFALGAR SQUARE. 

Under the picture gallery wall, 

As a sea-leaf clings to a wave -worn 
rock, 

Nor shrinks from the surging impetu- 
ous shock 

Of the breakers which gather and 
whiten and fall — 

A child's form crouches, nor seems to 
heed 



The ceaseless eddy and whirl of men : 
Men and women M'ith hearts that bleed, i 
Men and women of wealth and fame, \ 
High in honour, or sunk in shame, 
Pass on like i^hantoms, and pass again. 
And he lies there like a weed. 

X child's form, said I ; but looking 

again 
It is only the form that is childish now, 
For age has furrowed the low dull 

brow, 
And marked the pale face with its lines 

of pain. 
Vet but itw years have fled, since I 

first passed by, 
For a dwarf's life is short if you go ])y 

the sun, 
And marked in worn features and lus- 
treless eye 
Some trace of youth's radiance, though 

faint and thin, 
But now, oh, strange jest ! there's a 

beard to his chin. 
And lie lies there, grown old ere his 

youth is done. 
With his poor limbs bent awry. 

What a passer-by sees, is a monstrous 

head, 
\Vith a look in the eyes as of those who 

gaze 
On some far-off sight with a dumb 

amaze ; 
A face as pale as the sheeted dead, 
A frail body propped on a padded 

crutch, 
And lean long fingers, which flutter the 

keys 
Of an old accordion, reluming their 

touch 
^Vi(h some poor faint echoes of popular 

song, 



IN TRAFALGAR SQUARE. 



17 



Trivial at all times and obsolete long, 
Psalm-tunes, and African melodies, 
Not differing very much. 

And there he sits nightly in heat and 

cold, 
When the fountains fall soft on the 

stillness of June, 
Or when the sharp East sings its own 

shrill tune. 
Patiently playing and growing old. 
The long year waxes and wanes, the 

great 
Flash by in splendour from rout or ball, 
Statesmen grown weary with long 

debate. 
Hurry by homev/ards, and fling him 

alms ; 
Pitiful women, touched by the psalms, 
Bringing back innocence, stoop by the 

wall 
Where he lies at Dives' gate. 

What are his thoughts of, stranded 

there ? 
While life ebbs and flows by, again and 

again. 
Does the old sad Problem vex his poor 

brain ? 
" Why is the world so pleasant and 

fair, 
Why, am I only who did no wrong 
Crippled and bent out of human form ? 
W^hy are other men tall and strong ? 
Surely if all men were made to rejoice, 
vSeeing that we come without will or 

choice. 
It were better to crawl for a day like a 

worm. 
Than to lie like this so long ! 

*' The blind shuffles by with a tap of 
his staff. 



The tired tramp plods to the workhouse 

ward, — 
But he carries his broad back as straight 

as a lord 
And the blind man can hear his little 

ones laugh, 
While I lie here like a weed on ll.c 

sand, 
With these crooked limbs, paining nie 

night and day. 
Is it true, what they tell of a far-oft"land, 
In the sweet old faith which was 

preached for the poor, — 
Where none shall be weary or pnined 

any more. 
Nor change shall enter nor any decay. 
And the stricken down shall stand ?" 

And perhaps sometimes when the sky 
is clear, 

And the stars show like lamps on the 
sweet summer night, 

Some chance chord struck with a sud- 
den delight, 

Soars aloft with his soul, and brings 
Paradise near. 

And then — for even nature is some- 
times kind — 

He lies stretched under palms with a 
harp of gold ; 

Or is whirled on by coursers as fleet as 
the wind ; 

And is no more crippled, nor weak nor 
bent ; 

No more painful nor impotent ; 

No more hungry, nor weary nor cold, — 

But of perfect form and mind. 

Or maybe his thoughts are of humbler 

cast, 
For hunger and cold are real indeed ; 
And he looks for the hour when his 

toil shall be past, 

C 



i8 



IVA TCH—DRO WNED. 



And he with sufficient for next day's 

need : 
Some humble indulgence of food or 

fire, 
Some music-hall ditty, or marvellous 

book, 
Or whatever it be such poor souls 

desh-e ; 
And with this little solace, for God 

would fain 
Make even his measures of joy and 

pain. 
He drones happily on in his quiet 

nook, 
With hands that never tire. 

WeU, these random guesses must go 

for nought 
Seeing it is wiser and easier far 
To weigh to an atom the faintest star, 
Than to sound the dim depths of a 

brother's thought. 
But whenever I hear those poor snatches 

of song, 
And see him lie maimed in body and 

soul, 
While I am straight and healthy and 

strong, 
I seem to redden with a secret sliame, 
That we should so differ who sliould be 

the same, 
Till I hear their insolent chariot wheels 

roll 
The millionaires along. 



WATCH. 

Oh, hark ! the languid air is still, 
The fields and woods seem hushed 
and dumb. 

But listen, and you shall hear a thrill, 
An inner voice of silence come, 



Stray notes of birds, the hum of bees. 
The brook's light gossip on its way. 
Voices of children heard at play, 

Leaves whispering of a coming breeze. 

Oh, look ! the sea is fallen asleep, 

The sail hangs idle evermore ; 
Yet refluent from the outer deep, 

The low wave sobs upon the shore. 
Silent the dark cave ebbs and fills, 

Silent the broad weeds wave and 
sway ; 

Yet yonder fairy fringe of spray 
Is born of surges vast as hills. 

Oh, see ! the sky is deadly dark, 

There shines not moon nor any 
star ; 
But gaze awhile, and you shall mark 

Some gleam of glory from afar : 
Some half-hid planet's vagrant ray ; 

Some lightning flash which wakes 
the world ; 

Night's pirate banner slowly furled ; 
An'J, eastward, some faint flush of day. 



DROWNED. 

Only eighteen winters old ! 
Lay her with a tender hand 
On the delicate, ribbed sea-sand : 

Stiff and cold; ay, stiff and cold. 

What she has been, who shall care ?' 
Looking on her as she lies 
With those stony, sightless eyes, 

And the sea-weed in her hair. 

Think, O mothers ! how the deep' 
All the dreary night did rave ; 
Thundering foam and crested wave. 

While your darlings lay asleep. 



THE WANDERER. 19 


How she cleft the midnight air ; 


The long procession of the fabulous 


And the idiot surge beneath 


Past, 


Whirled her sea-ward to her death, 


Rolled by for me— the earliest dawn of 


Angry that she was so fair. 


time ; 




The seven great Days ; the garden and 


Tossed her, beat her, till no more 


the sword ; 


Rage could do, through all the night ; 


The first red stain of crime ; 


Then with morning's ghastly light, 




Flung her down upon the shore. 


The fierce rude chiefs who smote, and 




burned, and slew. 


Mother ! when brief years ago 


And all for God; the pitiless tyrants 


You were happy in your child, 


grand. 


Smiling on her as she smiled, 


Who piled to heaven the eternal monu- 


Thought you she would perish so ? 


ments. 




Unchanged amid the sand ; 


Man ! who made her what she is ; 




What, if when you falsely swore 


The fairy commonwealths, where Free- 


Vou would love her more and more, 


dom first 


You had seen her lie like this. 


Inspired the ready hand and glowing 




tongue 


And, Infinite Cause ! didst Thou, 


To a diviner art and sweeter song 


When Thou mad'st this hapless 


Than men have feigned or sung ; 


child, 




Dowered with passions, fierce and 


The strong bold sway that held man- 


wild, 


kind in thrall. 


See her lie as she lies now ? 


Soldier and jurist marching side by side, 




Till came the sure slow blight, when 


Filled with wild revolt and rage. 


all the world 


All I feel I may not speak ; 


Grew sick, and swooned, and died ; 


Fate so strong, and we so weak, 




Like rats in a cage, — like rats in a 


Again the long dark night, when 


cage. 


Learning dozed 




Safe in her cloister, and the world 




without 


THE WANDERER. 


Rang with fierce shouts of war and 




cries of pain. 


I REARED my virgin Soul on dainty 


Base triumph, baser rout ; 


food, 




I fed her with rich fruit and garnered 


Till rose a second dawn of light again, 


gold 


Agam the freemen stood m firm array 


From gardens planted by the pious 


Behind the foss, and Pope and Kaiser 


care 


came, 


Of the wise dead of old. 


Wondered and turned away ; 



THE WANDERER. 



And then the broadening stream, till 


Fair forms I found, and rounded limits 


the sleek priest 


divine, 


Aspired to tread the path the Pagan 


The maiden's grace, the tender curves 


trod, 


of youth, 


And Rome fell once again, and the 


The majesty of happy perfect years, 


brave North 


But only half the truth. 


Rose from the church to God. 






For there is more, I thought, in man, 


All these passed by for me, till the 


, and higher, 


vast tide 


Than animal graces cunningly com- 


Grew to a sea too wide for any shore ; 


bined ; 


Then doubt o'erspread me, and a cold 


Since oft within the unlovely frame is 


disgust, 


set 


And I would lo'ok no more. 


The shining, flawless mind. 


For something said, *' The Past is dead 


So I grew weary of the pallid throng, 


and gone. 


Deep - bosomed maids and stalwart 


Let the dead bury their dead, why 


heroes tall. 


strive with Fate ? 


One type 1 saw, one earthy animal seal 


Why seek to feed the children on the 


Of comeliness in all ! 


husks 




Their rude forefathers ate ? " 


But not the awful, mystical human soul— 




The soul that grovels and aspires in 


" For even were the Past reflected back 


turn — 


As in a mirror, in the historic page, 


The soul that struggles outwards into 


For us its face is strange, seeing that 


light 


the race 


Through lips and eyes that burn. 


Betters from age to age." 






So, from the soulless marbles, white 


" And if, hearing the tale we told our- 


and bare 


selves, 


And cold, too-perfect art, I turned and 


We marvel how the monstrous fable 


sought 


grew ; 


The canvases, where Christian hands 


How in these far-ofif years shall men 


have left 


discern 


The fruits of holy thought. 


The Active from the true ? " 




•» * * * 


Passion I found, and love, and godlike 


Then turned I to the broad domain of" 


pain. 


Art, 


The swift soul rapt by mingled hopes 


To seek if haply Truth lay hidden there ; 


and fears. 


Well knowing that of old close links 


Eyes lit with glorious light from the 


connect 


Unseen, 


The true things and the fair. 


Or dim with sacred tears. 



THE WANDERER. 



But everywhere around the living tree 


Or if at last the long-drawn symphony, 


I marked the tangled growths of fable 


After much weary wandering seemed to 


twine, 


soar 


And gross material images confuse 


To a finer air, and subtle measures born 


The earthly and divine. 


On some diviner shore, 


I saw the Almighty Ruler of the 


I thought how much of poor mechani- 


worlds, 


cal skill. 


The one unfailing Source of Light and 


How little fire of heart, or force of 


Love, 


brain, 


A sullen gray -beard set on rolling 


Was theirs who first devised or now 


clouds, 


declared 


Armed with the bolts of Jove. 


That magical sweet strain ; 


The Eternal Son, a shapeless new-born 


And how the art was partial, not im- 


child, 


mense, 


Supine upon His peasant - mother's 


As Truth is, or as Beauty, but confined 


knees, 


To this our later Europe, not spread 


Or else a ghastly victim, crushed and 


out, 


worn 


Wide as the width of mind. 


By physical agonies. 


* * * * 




So then from Art, and all its empty 


The virgin mother — now a simple girl ; 


shows 


Or old and blurred with tears, and wan 


And outward-seeming truth, I turned 


with sighs ; 


and sought 


And now a goddess, oft-times giving 


The secret springs of knowledge which 


back 


lie hid 


The harlot-model's eyes. 


Deep in the wells of thought. 


Till faring on what spark of heaven 


The hoary thinkers of the Past I knew ; 


was there, 


Whose dim vast thoughts, to too great 


Grew pale, then went out quite ; and 


stature grown. 


in its stead, 


Flashed round as fitful lightning flashes 


Dull copies of dull common life usurped 


round 


The empire of the dead. 


The black vault of the Unknown. 


Or if sometimes, rapt in a sweet sus- 


Who, seeing that things are Many, and 


pense. 


yet are One ; 


I knew a passionate yearning thrill my 


That all things suffer change, and yet 


soul, 


remain — 


As down long aisles from lofty quires 


That opposite flows from opposite, Life 


I heard 


and Death, 


The solemn music roll ; 


Love, Hatred, Pleasure, Pain — 



THE WANDERER. 



Raised high upon the mystical throne 
of life 

Some dim abstraction, hopeful to un- 
wind 

The tangled maze of things, by one 
rude guess 
Of an untutored mind. 

The sweet Ideal Essences revealed, 
To that high poet-thinker's eyes I 

saw ; 
The archetypes which underset the 

world 
With one broad perfect Law. 

The fair fantastic Commonwealth, too 

fair 
For earth, wherein the wise alone bore 

rule- 
So wise that oftentimes the sage himself 
Shows duller than the fool ; 

And that white soul, clothed with a 

satyr's form, 
Which shone beneath the laurels day 

by day, 
And, fired with burning faith in God 

and Right, 
Doubted men's doubts away ; 

And him who took all knowledge for 

his own, 
And with the same swift logical sword 

laid bare 
The depths of heart and mind, the 

mysteries 
Of earth and sea and air ; 

And those on whom the visionary East 
Worked in such sort, that knowledge 

grew to seem 
An ecstasy, a sudden blaze, revealed 
To crown the mystic's dream ; 



Till, once again, the old light faded 

out, 

And left no trace of that fair day re- 
main — 

Only a barren method, binding down 
Men's thoughts with such a chain 

That knowledge sank self-slain, like 

some stout knight 
Clogged by his harness ; nor could wit 

devise 
Aught but ignoble quibbles, subtly 
mixed 
With dull theologies. 

Not long I paused with these ; but 

passed to him 
Who, stripping, like a skilful wrestler, 

cast 
From his strong arms the precious 

deadly web. 
The vesture of the past ; 

And looked in Nature's eyes, and, foot 

to foot, 
Strove with her daily, till the witch at 

length 
Gave up, reluctant, to the questing 

mind 
The secret of her strength. 

And then the old fight, fought on 

modern fields, — 
Whether we know by sense or inward 

sight — 
Whether a law within, or use alone, 
Mark out the bounds of right — 

All these were mine ; and then the 

ancient doubt. 
Which scarce kept silence as this master 

taught 



THE WANDERER. 



23 



The undying soul, or that one subtly 
probed 
The process of our thought, 

And shuddered at the dreadful innocent 

talk 
To the cicala's chirp beneath the 

trees — • 
Love poised on silver wings, love fallen 

and fouled 
By black iniquities ; 

And laughed to scorn their quest of 

cosmic law, 
Saw folly in the Mystic and the Schools, 
And in the Newer Method gleams of 

truth 
Obscured by childish rules ; 

Rose to a giant's strength, and always 

cried — • 
You shall not find the truth here, she 

is gone ; 
What glimpse men had, was ages since, 

and these 
Go idly babbling on — 

Jangles of opposite creeds, alike un- 
true, 
Quaint puzzles, meaningless logoma- 
chies, 
Efforts to pierce the infinite core of 
things 
With purblind finite eyes. 

Go, get you gone to Nature, she is kind 
To reasonable worship ; she alone 
Thinks scorn, when humble seekers 

ask for bread, 
To offer them a stone. 

* * * ♦ 

And Nature drew me to her, and 

awhile 



Enchained me. Day by day, things 

strange and new 
Rose on me ; day by day, I seemed to 

tread 
Fresh footsteps of the true. 

I laid life's house bare to its inmost 
room 

With lens and scalpel, marked the 
simple cell 

Which might one day be man or creep- 
ing worm. 
For aught that sense could tell, — 

Thrust life to its utmost home, a speck 

of gray 
No more nor higher, traced the 

wondrous plan, 
The wise appliances which seem to 

shape 
The dwelling-place of man, — 

Nor halted here, but thirsted still to 

know, 
And, with half-blinded eyesight, loved 

to pore 
On that scarce visible world, born of 

decay 
Or stranded on the shore. 

Marked how the Mother works with 

earth and gas, 
And with what subtle alchemy knows 

to blend 
The vast conflicting forces of the world 
To one harmonious end ; 

And, nightly gazing on the splendid 

stars, 
Essayed in vain with reverent eye to 

trace 
The chain of miracles by which men 

learnt 
The mysteries of space ; 



24 



THE WANDERER. 



And toiled awhile with spade and 

hammer, to learn 
The long long sequences of life, and 

those 
Unnumbered cycles of forgotten years 
Ere life's faint light arose ; 

And loved to trace the strange sweet 

life of flowers, 
And all the scarce suspected links 

which span 
The gulf betwixt the fungus and the 

tree, 
And 'twixt the tree and man. 

Then suddenly, "What is it that I 

know ? 
I know the shows and changes, not the 

cause ; 
I know but long successions, which 

usurp 
The name and rank of Laws. 

"And what if the design I think 1 

see 
Be but a pitiless order, through the 

long 
Slow wear of chance and suffering 

working out 
Salvation for the strong ? 

" How else, if scheme there be, can I 

explain 
The cripple or the blind, the ravening 

jaw. 
The infinite waste of life, the plague, 

the sword, 
The evil, thriftless law, 

" Or seeming errors of design, or 

strange 
Complexities of structure, which 

suggest 



A will which sported with its power, 
or worked 
Not careful for the best?" 

I could not know the scheme, nor 

therefore spend 
My soul in painful efforts to conform 
With those who lavished life and brain 

to trace 
The story of a worm ; 

Nor yet with those who, prizing over- 
much 

The unmeaning jargon of their science, 
sought 

To hide, by arrogance, from God and 
man 
Their poverty of thought, 

And, blind with fact and stupefied by 

law, 

Lost sight of the Creator, and became | 
Dull bigots, narrowed to a hopeless 

creed. 
And priests in all but name. 

Thus, tired with seeking truth, and not 

content 
To dwell with those weak souls who 

love to feign 
Unending problems of the life and love 
Which they can ne'er explain ; 

Nor those who, parrot-like, are proud 

to clothe 
In twenty tongues the nothing that they 

know ; 
Nor those whom barren lines and 

numbers blind 
To all things else below ; 

And half-suspecting, when the poet sang 
And drew my soul to his, and round \ 
me cast 



THE WANDERER. 



Fine cords of fancy, but a sleight of Or, in the name of Justice, to confuse, 



words, 
Part stolen from the past — 

I thought. My life lies not with books, 

but men ! 
Surely the nobler part is his who 

guides 
'1 he State's great ship through hidden 

rocks and sands. 
Rude winds and popular tides, — 

K freeman amongst freemen, — and 

contrives, 
By years of thought and labour, to 

withdraw 
Some portion of their load from lives 

bent down 
By old abusive law ! 

A noble task ; but how to walk with 

those 
Who by fate's subtle irony ever hold 
The freeman's ear — the cunning fluent 

knave. 
The dullard big with gold ? 

And how, when worthier souls bore 

rule, to hold 
Faction more dear than Truth, or stoop 

to cheat. 
With cozening words and shallow 

flatteries 
The Solons of the street ? 

Or, failing this, to wear a hireling 

sword — 
Ready, whate'er the cause, to kill and 

slay. 
And float meanwhile, a gilded butter- 

fly, 

My brief inglorious day — 



For hire, with shameless tongue and 

subtle brain, 
Dark riddles, which, to honest minds 

unwarped. 
Were easy to explain — 

Or, with keen salutary knife, to carve 
For hire the shrinking limb ; or else to 

feign 
Wise words and healing powers, though 

knowing naught 
In face of death and pain — 

Or grub all day for pelf 'mid hides and 

oils, 
Like a mole in some dark alley, to rise 

at last. 
After dull years, to wealth and ease, 

when all 
The use for them is past — 

Or else to range myself with those who 

seek 
By reckless throws with chance, by 

trick and cheat. 
Swift riches lacking all the zest of toil, 
And only bitter-sweet. 

Or worst, and still for hire, to feign to 

hear 
A voice which called not, calling me to 

tell 
Now of an indolent heaven, and now, 
obscene 
Threats of a bodily hell. 
* * * * 

Then left I all, and ate the husks of sense; 
Oh, passionate coral lips ! oh, shameful 

fair! 
Bright eyes, and careless smiles, and 
reckless mirth ! 
Oh, golden rippling hair ! 



25 



THE WAXDERER. 



Oh, rose-strewn feasts, made glad with 

wine and song 
And laughter-lit ! oh, whirling dances 

sweet, 
When the mad music faints awhile and 

leaves 
Low beats of rhythmic feet ! 

Oh, glorious terrible moments, when 

the sheen 
Of silk, and straining limbs flash 

thundering by, 
And name and fame and honour itself, 

await 
Worse hazard than the die ! 

All these were mine. Then, thought I, 

I have found 
The truth at last ; here comes not doubt 

to pain ; 
Here things are what they seem, not 

figments, born 
Of a too busy brain. 

But soon, the broken law avenged 

itself; 
For, oh, the pity of it ! to feel the tire 
- Grow colder daily, and the soaring 
soul 
Sunk deep in grosser mire. 

And oh, the pity of it ! to drag down 

lives 
Which had been happy else, to ruin, 

and waste 
The precious affluence of love, which 

else 
Some humble home had graced. 

And oh ! the weariness of feasts and 

wine ; 
The jests where mirth was not, the 

nerves unstrung, 



The throbbing brain, the tasteless joys, 
which keep 
Their savour for the young. 

These came upon me, and a vague un- 
rest. 
And then a gnawing pain ; and then I 

fled. 
As one some great destruction passes, 
flees 
A city of the dead. 
* * * * 

Then, pierced by some vague sense of 

guilt and pain, 
" God help me ! " I said. " There is 

no help in life, 
Only continual passions waging war. 
Cold doubt and endless strife ! " 

But He is full of peace, and truth, and 

rest, 
I give myself to Him ; I yearn to 

find 
What words divine have fallen from age 

to age 
Fresh from the Eternal mind. 

And so, upon the reverend page I 
dwelt. 

Which shows Him formless, self-con- 
tained, all-wise, 

Passionless, pure, the soul of visible 
things. 
Unseen by mortal eyes ; 

Who oft across dim gulfs of time re 

vealed. 
Grew manifest, then passed and left a 

foul 

Thick mist of secular error to ob- [ 

scure ',' 

The upward gazing soul ; - 



7 HE IVAXDERER. 



27 



xA.nd that which told of Opposite 
Principles, 

Of Light with Darkness warring ever- 
more ; 

Ah me ! 'twas nothing new, I had felt 
the fight 
Within my soul before. 

And those wise Answers of the far-off 

sage, 
So wise, they shut out God, and can 

enchain 
To-day in narrow bonds of foolishness 
The subtle Eastern brain. 

And last, the hallowed pages dear to 

all. 
Which bring God down to earth, a 

King to fight 
With Hib people's hosts ; or speaking 

awful words 
From out the blaze of light, — 

Which tell how earthly chiefs wlio 

loved the right, 
Were dear to Him ; and how the poet 

king 
Sang, from his full repentant heart, tho 

strains 
Sad hearts still love to sing. 

And how the seer was filled with words 

of fire, 
And passionate scorn and lofty hate of 

III, 
So pure, that we who hear them seem 

to hear 
God speaking to us still, 

But mixed with these, dark tales of 

fraud and blood. 
Like weeds in some fair garden ; till I 

said. 



" These are not His ; how shall a man 
discern 
The living from the dead ? 

" I will go to that fair Life, the flower 

of lives ; 
I will prove the infinite pity and love 

which shine 
From each recorded word of Him who 

once 
Was human, yet Divine. 

" Oh, pure sweet life, crowned by a 

godlike death ; 
Oh, tender healing hand ; oh, words that 

give 
Rest to the weary, solace to the sad, 
And bid the hopeless live ! 

" Oh, pity, spurning not the penitent 

thief ; 
Oh, wisdom, stooping to the little 

child ; 
Oh, infinite purity, taking thought for 

lives 
By sinful stains defiled ! 

" With thee, will I dwell, with thee." 

But as I mused. 
Those pale ascetic words renewed my 

doubt : 
The cheek, which to the smiter should 

be turned, 
The offending eye plucked out. 

The sweet impossible counsels which 

may seem 
Too perfect for our need ; nor recog- 
nise 
A duty to the world, not all reserved 
For that beyond the skies. 



2S 



THE WANDERER. 



"And was it truth, or some too reverent 

dream 
Which scorned God's precious processes 

of birth, 
And spurned aside for Him, the 

changeless laws 
Which rule all things of earth ? 

" Or how shall some strange breach of 

natural law 
]5e proof of moral truth ; yet how deny 
That He who holds the cords of life and 

death 
Can raise up those who die ? 

"Yet how to doubt that God may be 

revealed ; 
Is He more strange, incarnate, shedding 

tears, 
Than when the unaided scheme fulfils 

itself 
Through countless painful years ? 

" But if revealed He be, how to escape 
The critic who dissects the sacred page, 
Till God's gift hangs on grammar, and 
the saint r 

Is weaker than the sage ! " 

These warring thoughts held me, and 

more ; but when 
The simple life divine shone forth no 

more. 
And the fair truth came veiled in stately 

robes 
Of philosophic lore ; 

And 'twas the apostle spoke, and not 

the Christ ; 
The scholar, not the Master ; and the 

Church 
Defined itself, and sank to earthly 

thrones : 
"Surely," I said, "my search 



"Is vain;" and when with magical 

rite and spell 
They killed the Lord, and sought with 

narrow creed. 
Half- fancy, half of barbarous logic 

born. 
To heal the hearts ihat bleed ; 

And heretic strove with heretic, and 

the Church 
Slew for the truth itself had made : 

again, 
"Can these things be of Him?" I 

thought, and felt 
The old undying pain. 

And yet the fierce false prophet turned 

to God 
The gross idolatrous East ; and far away. 
Beyond the horrible wastes, the lewd 
knave makes 
A Paradise to-day. 
* * * * 

Vet deep within my being still I kept 
Two sacred fires alight through all the 

strife, — 
Faith in a living God ; faith in a soul 
Dowered with an endless life. 

And therefore though the world's 

foundations shook, 
I was not all unhappy ; knowing well 
That He whose hand sustained me 

would not bear 
To leave my soul in hell. 

But now I looked on nature with 

strange eyes. 
For something whispered, " Surely all 

things pass ; 
All life decays on earth or air or sea, — 

All wither like the grass." 



THE WANDERER, 



29 



"These are, then have been, we our- 
selves decline, 

And cease and turn to earth, and are 
as they : 

Shall our dear animals rise ; shall the 
dead flowers 
Bloom in another May ? 

"The seed springs like the herb, but 

not the same ; 
And like us, not the same, our children 

rise ; 
The type survives, though suffering 

gradual change, 
The individual dies. 

"How shall one seek to sever, e'en in 

thought. 
Body and soul ; how show to doubting 

eyes 
That this returns to dust, while the 

other soars 
Deathless beyond the skies ? 

" And if it be a lovely dream — no more, 
And life is ended with our latest breath, 
May not the same sweet fancy have 
devised 
The Lord of life and death ? 

"We know Him not at all, nor may 

conceive 
Beginning or yet ending. Is it more 
To image an Eternal World, than one 
Where nothing was before ? 

"Whence came the Maker? Was He 

uncreate ? 
Then why must all things else created 

be? 
Was He created? Then, the Lord I 

serve, 
Lies farther off than He. 



" Or if He be indeed, yet the soul dies. 
Why, what is He to us ? not here, not 

here ! 
His judgments fall, wrong triumphs 

here — right sinks ; 
What hope have we, or fear ? " 

I could not answer, yet \\hen others 

came, 
Affirming He was not, and bade me 

live 
\\\ the present only, seizing unconcerned 
What pleasures life could give. 

My doubt grown fiercer, scoffed at 
them, " Oh fools. 

And blind, your joys I know ; the uni- 
verse 

Confutes you ; can you see right yield 
to might. 
The better to the worse, — 

" Nor burn to adjust them ? If it were 

a dream. 
Would all men dream it ? Can your 

thought conceive 
The end you tell of better than the life. 
Which all men else believe ? 

"Or if we shrink as from a hateful 

voice, 
From mute analogies of frame and 

shape. 
Surely no other than a breath Divine 
Gave reason to the ape." 

" What made all men to call on God ? 

what taught 
The soaring soul its lofty heavenward 

flight ? 
What led us to discern the strait bounds 

set, 
To sever wrong from riijht ? 



3« 



THE WANDERER. 



" Be sure, no easier is it to declare 
He is not than He is : " and I who 

sought 
Firm ground, saw here the same too 

credulous faith 
And impotence of thought. 

And when they brought me their fan- 
tastic creed, 

With a figment for a god — mock cere- 
monies — 

Man worshipping himself— mock priests 
to kill 
The soul's high liberties, — 

I spurned the folly with a curse, and 

turned 
To dwell with my own soul apart, and 

there 
Found no companion but the old doubt 
grown 
To an immense despair. 
* » ♦ * 

Then, as a man who, on a sunny day. 
Feeling some trivial ache, unknown be- 
fore, 
Goes careless from his happy home, 
and seeks 
A wise physician's door. 

And when he comes forth, neither 

heeds nor sees 
The joyous tide of life or smiling sky, 
But always, always hears a ceaseless 

voice 
Repeating "Thou shalt die." 

So all the world flowed by, and all my 

days 
Passed like an empty vision, and I said, 
" rhere is no help in life ; seeming to 

live. 
We are but as the dead." 



And thus, I tossed al)out long time ; 

at last 
Nature rebelled beneath the constant 

pain, 
And the dull sleepless care forgot itself, 

In frenzy of the brain. 

And sometimes all was blackness, un- 
relieved, 

And sometimes I would wander day 
and night, 

Through fiery long arcades, which 
seared my brain 
With flakes of blinding light. 

And then I lay unmoved in a gray 
calm ; 

Not life nor death, and the past came 
to seem 

Thought, act, faith, doubt, things of 
but lit .le worth 
A dream within a dream. 
* * * * 

But, when I saw my country like a 
cloud, 

Sink in the East, and the free ocean- 
wind 

Fanned life's returning flame and 
roused again 
Slow pulse and languid mind ; 

Soon the great rush and mystery of the 

sea, 
The grisly depths, the great waves 

surging on, 
Dark with white spuming crests which 

threaten death, 
Swoop by, and so are gone. 

And the strong sense of weakness, as 

we sped — 
Tossed high, plunged low, through 

many a furious night, 



THE WANDERER. 



31 



And slept in faith, that some poor 


But with new springs of sympathy, no 


seaman woke 


more 


To guide our course aright. 


By impotent musings vexed. 


All lightened something of my load, 


x-Vnd last of all I knew the lovely land 


and seemed 


Which was most mighty, and is still 


To solace me a little, for they taught, 


most fair ; 


That the impalpable unknown might 


Where world-wide rule and heaven- 


stretch. 


ward faith have left 


Even to the realms of thought. 


Their traces everywhere. 


And so I wandered into many lands, 


And as from province to province I 


And over many seas ; I felt the chill 


wandered on. 


\Vhich in mid-ocean strikes on those 


City or country, all was fair and sweet; 


who near 


The air, the fields, the vines, the dark- 


The spire-crowned icy hill. 


eyed girls, 




The dim arcaded street ; 


And threaded fairy straits beneath the 




palms. 


The minsters lit for vespers, in the cool ; 


\Miere, year by year, the tepid waters 


Gay bridals, solemn burials, soaring 


sleep ; 


chant. 


And where, round coral isles, the 


Spent in high naves, gray cross, and 


sudden sea 


wayside shrine. 


Sinks its unfathomed deep. 


And kneeling suppliant ; 


Upon the savage feverish swamp, I trod 


And painting, strong to aid the eye of 


The desert sands, the fat low plains of 


faith. 


the East ; 


And sculpture, figuring awful destinies : 


On glorious storied shores and those 


Thin campaniles, crowning lake-lit hills, 


where man 


And sea- worn palaces. 


Was ever as the beast. 






Then, as the sweet days passed me one 


And, day by day, I felt my frozen soul, 


by one, 


v^oothed by the healing influence of 


New tides of life through body and 


change, 


soul were sent ; 


Grow softer, registering day by day. 


And daily sights of beauty worked a 


Things new, unknown, and 


calm 


strange. 


Ineffable content. 


Not therefore, holding what it spumed 


And soon, as in the spring, ere fiosts 


before. 


are done. 


Nor solving riddles, which before per- 


Deep down in earth the black roots 


plexed ; 


quicken and start. 



32 



THE WANDERER. 



I seemed to feel a spring of faith and 

love 

Stir through my frozen heart. 

* * * * 

Till one still summer eve, when as I 

mused 
]]y a fair lake, from many a silvery bell. 
Thrilled from tall towers, I heard the 
Angelas, 
Deep peace upon me fell. 

And following distant organ-swells, I 

passed 
Within the circuit of a lofty wall, 
And thence within dim aisles, wherein 

I heard 
The low chant rise and fall. 

And dark forms knelt upon the ground, 

and all 
Was gloom, save where some dying 

day-beam shone. 
High in the roof, or where the votive 

lamp 
Burned ever dimly on. 

Then whether some chanoe sound or 

solemn word 
Across my soul a precious influence cast, 
Or whether the fair presence of a faith 
Born of so great a Past, 

Smote me ! the wintry glooms were 
past and done, 

And once again the Spring-time, and 
once more 

Faith from its root bloomed heaven- 
ward — and I sank 
Weeping upon the floor. 
■» • * * 

Long time within that peaceful home 
I dwelt 

With those grave brethren, spending 
silent days 



And watchful nights, in solemn reverent 
thought. 
Made glad by frequent praise. 

And the awakened longing for the 

Truth, 
With the great dread of what had been 

before. 
The ordered life, the nearer view of 

heaven, 
Worked on me more and more. 

So that, I lived their life of ]:irayer and 

praise, 
Alike in summer heats and wintry 

snows. 
Pacing chill cloisters 'neath the waning 

stars. 
Long ere the slow sun rose. 

And speaking little, and bringing down 

my soul 
With frequent fast and vigil, saw at 

length 
Truth's face show daily clearer and 

more clear 
To failing bodily strength. 

For living in a mystical air, and 

parched 
With thirst for faith and truth ; at last 

I brought 
The old too-active logic to enforce 
The current of my thought. 

And wishing to believe, 1 took for 

true 
The shameless subtleties which dare to 

tell 
How the Eternal charged one hand to 

hold 
The keys of heaven and hell. 



THE WANDERER. 



"For if a faith be given, then must 


The more incredible the talc, the more 


there be 


The merit of belief ; the more I sought 


A Church to guard it, and a tongue to 


To reason out the truth, I knew the 


speak, 


more 


And an unerring mind to rule alike 


The impotence of thought. 


The strong souls and the weak. " 






And thus the swift months passed in 


"And, because God's high purpose 


prayer and praise. 


stands not still, 


Bringing the day when those tall gates 


TJut He is ever with His own, the tide 


should close, 


Of miracle and dogma ceases not. 


And shut me out from thought and 


But flows down strong and wide. 


life and all 




Our heritage of woes. 


"To the world's ending." So my 


* * * * 


mind fell prone. 


Then, one day, when the end drew 


J]^fore the Church ; and teachings new 


very near, 


and strange ; 


Wliich should blot out the past for 


Tlie wafer, which to spirit and sense 


ever, and I 


sustains 


Waited impatient, longing for the hour 


Some dim incredible change — 


When my old self should die ; 


The substance which tho' altered yet 


I knelt at noon, within the darkened 


retains 


aisle. 


The self-same accidents ; the Virgin 


Before a doll tawdry with rich bro- 


Queen, 


cade. 


Immaculate in birth, and without death, 


And all ablaze with gems, the precious 


Soaring to worlds unseen — 


gifts 




Which pious hands had made : 


The hgends, sometimes foolish, ofttimes 




fair. 


Nor aught of strange I saw, so changed 


Of saints who set all natural laws at 


was I, 


naught ; 


In that dull fetish ; nay, heaven's gate 


The miracles, the portents, not the 


unsealed. 


charm, 


And the veiled angels bent before the 


Of the old Pagan thought — 


throne. 




Where sat their Lord revealed. 


These shook me not at all, who only 




longed 


While Hke a flood the ecstasy of faith 


To drain the healing draught of faith 


Surged high and higher, swift to fall at 


again, 


last 


And dreaded, with a coward dread, the 


Lower and lower, when the rapture 


thought 


failed 


Of the old former pain. 


And faded, ar.d was past. 



34 



7HE WANDERER. 



Lo, a sweet sunbeam, straying through 

the gloom 
Smote me, as when the first low shaft 

of day 
Aslant the night-clouds shoots, and 

momently 
Chases the mists away. 

And that ideal heaven was closed, and 

all 
That reverend house turned to a dark- 
ened room, 
A den of magic, masking with close 
fumes 
The odours of the tomb. 
« * * * 

Then passed I forth. Again my soul 

was free ; 
Again the summer sun and exquisite air 
Made all things smile ; and life and joy 
and love 
Beamed on me everywhere. 

And over all the earth there went a 
stir, 

A movement, a renewal. Round the 
spring 

In the broad village street, the dark- 
eyed girls 
Were fain to dance and sing 

For the glad time. The children 

played their play, 
Like us who play at life ; light bursts 

of song 
Came from the fields, and to the village 

church 
A bridal passed along. 

Far on the endless plain, the swift 

steam drew 
A soft white riband. Down the lazy 

flow 



Of the broad stream, I marked, round 

sylvan bends, 
The seaward barges go. 

The brown vine-dresser, bent among 
his vines, 

Ceased sometimes from his toil to hold 
on high 

His laughing child, vv'hile his deep- 
bosomed wife 
Cheerful sat watching by. 

And all the world was glad, and full 

of life. 
And I grew glad with it, and quickly 

came 
To see my past life as it was, and 

feel 
A salutary shame. 

For what was it I had wished ? To set 

aside 
The perfect scheme of things, to live 

apart 
A sterile life, divorced from light and 

love. 
Sole, with an empty heart. 

And wherefore to fatigue the Eternal 

ear 
With those incessant hymns of barren 

praise ? 
Does not a sweeter sound go up to 

Him 
From well-spent toilsome days, — 

And natural life, refined by honest 

love. 
And sweet unselfish liturgies of home. 
Heaven's will, borne onward by 

obedient souls. 
Careless of what may come ? 



THE WANDERER. 



?5 



What need has He for praise? Forest 

and field, 
The winds, the seas, the plains, the 

mountains, praise 
Their Maker, with a grander litany 
Than our poor voices raise. 

What need has He of them ? And 

looking back 
To those gray walls which late had 

shown so fair, 
I felt as one who from a dungeon 

'scapes 
To free unfettered air. 

And half distrustful of myself, and full 
Of terror of what might be, once more 

fled, 
With scarce a glance behind, as one 
who flees 
A city of the dead. 
* « * * 

All through that day and night I jour- 
neyed on 
To the northward. With the dawn a 

tender rose 
Blushed in mid-heaven, and looking 
up, I saw 
Far off, the eternal snows. 

Then all day higher, higher, from the 

plain, 
Beyond the tinkling folds, beyond the 

fair 
Dense, self-sown chestnuts, then the 

scented pines, 
And then an eager air, 

And then the ice-fields and the cloud- 
less heavens ; 
And ever as I climbed, I seemed to cast 
My former self behind, and all the rags 
Of that unlovely past : 



The doubts, the superstitions, the 
regrets, 

The awakening ; as the soul which 
hears the loud 

Archangel summon, rising, casts be- 
hind 
Corruption and the shroud. 

For I was come into a higher land. 
And breathed a purer air than in the 

past ; 
And He who brought me to the dust 
of death 
Had holpen me at last. 
* * * * 

What then ? A dream of sojourn 'mid 

the hills, 
A stir of homeward travel, swift and 

brief. 
Because the very hurry of the change 
Brought somewhat of relief. 

A dream of a fair city, the chosen 

seat 
Of all the pleasures, impotent to stay 
The thirsty soul, whose water-springs' 

were laid 
In dear lands far away. 

A dream of the old crowds, the smoke, 

the din 
Of our dear mother, dearer far than 

fair ; 
The home of lofty souls and busy 

brains, 
Keener for that thick air. 

Then a long interval of patient toil, 
Building the gradual framework of my 

art, 
With eyes which cared no more to seek 
the whole. 
Fast fixed upon the part. 



-,6 



THE WANDERER. 



And mind, which shunned the general, 

absorbed 
In the particular only, till it saw 
What boundless possibilities lie for 

men 
Twixt matter and high law ! 

How that which may be rules, not that 

which must ; 
And absolute truth revealed, would 

serve to blind 
The soul's bright eye, and sear \^ilh 

tongues of flame 
The sinews of the mind. 

How in the web of life, the thread of 

truth 
Is woven with error; yet a vesture 

fair 
Comes from the loom — a precious royal 

robe 
Fit for a god to wear. 

Till at the last, upon the crest of toil 
Sat Knowledge, and I gained a newer 

truth : 
Not the pale queen of old, but a soft 

maid, 
Filled with a tender ruth. 

And, ray by ray, the clear-faced unity 
Orbed itself forth, and lo ! the noble 

throng 
Of patient souls, who sought the truth 
in act, 
And grew, through silence, strong. 

Till prizing union more than dissidcnce, 
And holding dear the race, I came to 

prove 
A spring of sympathy within, which 

swelled 
To a deep stream of love. 



And Knowledge gave me gold, and 

power, and fame, 
And honour ; and Love, a clearer, 

surer view : 
Thus in calm depths I moored my 

weary soul 
Fast anchored to the True. 



And now the past lies far away, and I 
Can scarce recall those vanished days 

again ; 
No more the old faith stirs me, and no 

more 
Comes the old barren pain. 

For now each day brings its appointed 

toil, 
And every hour its grateful sum of care ; 
And life grows sweeter, and the gracious 

world 
Shows day by da}- more fair. 

For now I live a Iw o-fold life ; my own 
And yet another's ; and another heart 
Which beats to mine, makes glad the 
lonely world 
Where once I lived apart. 

And little lives are mine to keep un- 
stained. 

Strange mystic growths, which day by 
day expand, 

Like the flowers they are, and set me 
in a fair 
Perpetual wonderland. 

New senses, gradual language, dawning 

mind, 
And with each day that passes, traced 

more strong 
On those white tablets, awful characters 
That tell of right and wrong. 



THE WEARY RIVER. 



37 



And what hand wrote them ? One brief 

life declined, 
Went from us, and is not. Ah ! what 

and where 
Is that fair soul ? Surely it somewhere 

blooms 
In purer, brighter air. 

What took it hence, and whither ? Can 

I bear 
To think, that I shall turn to a herb, a 

tree, 
A little earth or lime, nor care for these, 
Whatever things may be ? 

Or shall the love and pity I feel for 

these 
End here, nor find a higher type or 

task? 
I am as God to them, bestowing more 
Than they deserve or ask. 

And shall I find no Father ? Shall my 

being 
Aspire in vain for ever, and always tend 
To an impossible goal, which none 

shall reach, — 
An aim without an end ? 

Or, shall I heed them when they bid 

me take 
No care for aught but what my brain 

may prove ? 
I, through whose inmost depths from 

birth to death. 
Strange heavenward currents 

move; 

Vague whispers, inspirations, memories. 
Sanctities, yearnings, secret question- 
ings, 
And oft amid the fullest blaze of noon, 
The rush of hidden wings ? 



Nay ; my soul spurns it ! Less it is to 

know 
Than to have faith : not theirs who cast 

away 
The mind God gave them, eager to adore 
Idols of baser clay. 

But theirs, who marking out the bounds 

of mind. 
And where thought rules, content to 

understand, 
Know that beyond its kingdom lies a 

dread 
Immeasurable land. 

A land which is, though fainter than a 

cloud. 

Full of sweet hopes and awful destinies : 

A dim land, rising when the eye is clear 

Across the trackless seas. 

* * « * 

O life ! O death ! O faithful wandering 

soul ! 
O riddle of being, too hard to under- 
stand ! 
These are Thy dreadful secrets. Lord ; 
and we 
The creatures of Thy hand. 

O wells of consciousness, too deep for 

thought, 
These are Thy dwelling, awful Lord 

Divine ; 
Thine are we still, the creatures of Thy 

hand. 
Living and dying, Thine. 



THE WEARY RIVER. 

There is a ceaseless river. 
Which flows down evermore 

Into a wailing ocean, 
A sea without a shore 



38 



TRUTH IN FALSEHOOD. 



Broken by laughing ripple, 
Foaming with angry swell, 

Sweet music as of heaven, 
Deep thunder as of hell. 

Gay fleets float down upon it. 
And sad wrecks, full of pain : 

But all alike it hurries 
To that unchanging main. 

Sometimes 'tis foul and troubled, 
And sometimes clear and pure 

But still the river flows, and still 
The dull sea doth endure. 

And thus 'twill flow for ever, 
Till time shall cease to be : 

O weary, weary river, 
O bitter, barren sea. 



TRUTH m FALSEHOOD. 

Your little hand in mine I rest : 
The slender fingers, white and long, 
Lie in my broad palm, rude and 
strong, 

Like birdlings in their nest. 

Yours, like yourself, so soft and white. 
So delicately free from soil ; 
Mine sunbrowned, hard with moil 
and toil, 

And seamed with scars of fight. 

Dear love ! sometimes your innocence 
Strikes me with sudden chills of fear ; 
What if you saw before you, dear, 

The secret gulfs of sense ? — 

The coarseness, the deceit, the sin, 
We know, who 'mid the sordid crowd 
Must press, nor midst the tumult loud 

f^m hear the voice within? 



What if you saw me with the eyes 
Of others, — nay, my own, — or heard 
The unworthy tale, the biting word, 

The sneer that worldlings prize ? 

Or knew me as I am indeed. 
No hero free from blot or stain, 
But a poor soul who drags his chain 

With halting feet that bleed, — 

Who oft-time slips and falls, content, 
Though bruised and weary, faint and 

worn. 
He toils all night, if with the morn 

When life and strength are spent, 

He sees some far-off struggling ray, 
Dispel the palpable obscure, 
And on the eastern hills, the pure 

White footprints of the day? 

But you, oh love, can never know 
These darkling paths ; for you th.e 

light 
Shines always changeless, always 
bright, 
The self-same tempered glow. 

And love with innocence combined 
The nunnery of your heart shall 

guard, 
And faith with eye unfailing ward 

The jewel of your mind. 

So be it : I would sooner be 

vSteeped to the lips in lie and cheat, 
A very monster of deceit. 

Than bare myself to thee. 

Nay, rather would I dare to hear 
At that great Day from lips of flame, 
Blown to all souls my tale of shame, 
I Than whispered in thine ear. 



7JV0 VOYAGES. 



39 



Strange riddle, to those wlio never 
knew 
Of good with evil intertwined 
The two-fold self, the links that bind 

The false things to the true ; 

But to the seeing eye more clear 
Than blaze of noonday. So be sure 
If such deceit might keep thee 
pure, 

I'd glory in it, dear. 



TIVO VOYAGES. 

Two ships which meet upon the ocean 

waste, 
And stay a little while, and interchange 
Tidings from two strange lands, which 

lie beneath 
Each its own heaven and particular 

stars, 

And fain would tarry ; but the im- 
patient surge 

Calls, and a cold wind from the setting 
sun 

Divides them, and they sadly drift apart, 

And fade, and sink, and vanish, 'neath 
the verge — 

One to the breathless plains and 
treacherous seas 

Smitten by the tyrannous Sun, where 
mind alone 

Withers amid the bounteous outer- 
world, 

And prodigal Nature dwarfs and chains 
the man — 

One to cold rains, rude winds, and 

hungry waves 
Spilt on the frowning granite, niggard 

suns. 



And snows and mists which starve the 

vine and palm, 
But nourish to more glorious growth 

the man. 

One to the scentless flowers and song- 
less birds, 

Swift storms and poison stings and 
ravening jaws : 

One to spring violets and nightingales, 

Sleek-coated kine and honest gray-eyed 
skies. 

One to lie helpless on the stagnant sea. 
Or sink in sleep beneath the hurricane : 
One to speed on, white-winged, through 

summer airs. 
Or sow the rocks ^^ith ruin — who 

shall tell ? 

So with two souls which meet on life's 

broad deep, 
And cling together but may not stay ; 

for Time 
And Age and chills of Absence wear 

the links 
Which bind them, and they part for 

evermore — 

One to the tropic lands of fame and 

gold. 
And feverish thirst and weariness of 

soul ; 
One to long striiggles and a wintry life, 
Decked with one sweet white bloom of 

happy love. 

For each, one fate, to live and die 

apart, 
vSave for some passing smile of kindred 

souls ; 
Then drift away alone, on opposite 

tides. 
To one dark harlx)ur and invisible goal. 



40 THE WISE RULE— THE VOICE OF ONE CRYING. 



THE WISE RULE. 

" Time flies too fast, too fast our life 

decays." 
Ah, faithless ! in the present lies our 

being ; 
And not in lingering love for vanished 

days ! 

" Come, happy future, when my soul 

shall live." 
Ah, fool ! thy life is now, and not 

again ; 
Tlie future holds not joy nor pain to 

give ! 

<' Live for what is : future and past are 

naught." 
Ah, blind ! a fla^h, and what shall 

be, has been. 
Where, then, is that for which thou 

takest thought? 

Not in what has been, is, or is to be, 
The wise soul lives, but in a wider 

time, 
Which is not any, but contains the 

three ! 



THE VOICE OF ONE CRYING. 

" Cry, cry aloud in the land, cry aloud 

in the streets of the city ; 
Cry and proclaim that no more shall 

the blood of the people be shed. 
Too long have the great ones waxed 

strong, without justice or any 

pity, 
Too long have they ground down the 

poor, and eaten the people as 

bread." 
Thus said the voice from the dead. 



"Terrible voice, I said, immoderate, 

voice of unreason, 
Not of themselves do the lowly ones 

mourn, or the great ones rejoice ; 
He who hath made them unequal, 

hath made all things in their 

season ; 
If they are mighty and strong, they 

were made without freedom or 

choice." 
"Cry, cry aloud," said the voice. 

" How shall the sins of the few be 

reckoned against the many? 
Are there no tender hearts and kind 

'midst the selfish and proud ; 
Merciful souls and pure, full of love for 

their suffering brothers ; 
Pitiful, touched with compassion and 

care for the desolate crowd ? " 
"Cry," said the voice, "cry aloud." 

" Nay, but the world is ruled by merci- 
less rules unbending ; 

The feeble folk fade from the earth, 
and only the mighty remain ; 

Not men alone, but all things send 
upwards a clamour unending ; 

Always the whole creation travails in 
sorrow and pain. ' 
"Cry, 'said the voice, "cry again." 

"Are not our sins and our fathers' 

worked out in our children's 

sorrow ? 
Does not excess of laughter sink at its 

close in a sigh ? 
Mirth and enjoyment to-day turn to 

pain and repentance to-morrow ; 
Thousands are born every hour, in the 

place of the thousands who die." 
"Cry," said the stubborn voice, 
" cry." 



OTHER DAYS— THE TRUE MAN. 



41 



^\Lo! He hath made all things ; good 

and evil, sorrow and pleasure ; 
I^ot as your ways are His ways, yet are 

ye not all in His hand ? 
Just is He, though ye know not the 

measure wherewith He will 

measure ; 
Dark things shall one day be clear ; 

to obey is to understand ! " 
Thus that voice, solemn and grand. 



OTHER DAYS. 

O Thrush, your song is passing sweet. 
But never a song that you have sung 

Is half so sweet as thrushes sang 
When my dear love and I were young. 

O Roses, you are sweet and red, 
Yet not so red nor sweet as were 

The roses that my mistress loved 
To bind within her flowing hair. 

Time filches fragrance from the flower ; 
Time steals the sweetness from the 
song ; 
Love only scorns the tyrant's power. 
And with the growing years grows 
strong. 



THE TRUE MAN. 

Take thou no thought for aught save 

right and truth. 
Life holds for finer souls no equal prize ; 
Honours and wealth are baubles to the 

wise, 
And pleasure flies on swifter wing than 

youth. 



If in thy heart thou bearest seeds of 

hell. 
Though all men smile, yet what shall 

be thy gain ? 
Though all men frown, if truth and 

right remain, 
Take thou no thought for aught ; for it 

is well. 

Take thou no thought for aught ; nor 

deem it shame 
To lag behind while knaves and dullards 

rise ; 
Thy soul asks higher guerdon, purer 

fame, 
Thau to loom large and grand in vulgar 

eyes. 
Though thou shouldst live thy life in 

vile estate. 
Silent, yet knowing that deep within 

thy breast 
Unkindled sparks of genius lie re- 
pressed, — 
Greater is he who is, than seemeth, 

great. 

If thou shouldst spend long years of 

hope deferred, 
Chilled through with doubt, and sicken- 
ing to despair ; 
If as cares thicken friends grow cold 

and rare. 
Nor favouring voice in all the throng 

be heard ; 
If all men praise him whom thou 

know'st to be 
Of lower aims and duller brain than 

thine, — 
Take thou no thought, though all men 

else combine 
In thy despite : their praise is naught 

to thee. 



42 



PASSING. 



Bethink thee of the irony of fate. 


Who hath this, he hath all tilings. 


How great men die inglorious and 


having naught ; 


alone ; 


Who hath it not, hath nothing, having 


How Dives sits within upon his throne, 


all. 


While good men crouch with Lazarus 




at the gate. 




Our tree of hfe set on Time's hither 


PASSING. 


shore 




Blooms like the secular aloe once an 


To spring, to bloom, to fade, — 


age: 


This is the sum of the laborious years ; 


The great names scattered on the 


Life preludes death as laughter ends in 


historic page 


tears : 


Are few indeed, but the unknown are 


All things that God has made 


more. 


Suffer perpetual change, and may not 




long endure. 


Waste is the rule of life: the gay 




flowers spring, 


We alter day by day ; 


The fat fruits drop, upon the untrodden 


Each little moment, as life's current 


plain ; 


rolls. 


Sea-sands at ebb are silvered o'er with 


Stamps some faint impress on our 


pain; 


yielding souls ; 


The fierce rain beats and mars the 


We may not rest nor stay. 


feeble wing ; 


Drifting on tides unseen to one dread 


Fair forms grow fairer still for deep 


goal and sure. 


disease ; 




Hearts made to bless are spent apart, 


Our being is compassed round 


alone. 


With miracles; on this our Hfe-long 


What claim hast thou to joy, while 


sleep. 


others moan ? 


Strange whispers rise from the sur- 


God made us all, and art thou more 


rounding deep, 


than these ? 


Like that weird ocean sound 




Borne in still summer nights on weary 


Take thou no care for aught save truth 


watching ears. 


and right ; 




Content, if such thy fate, to die obscure ; 


The selves we leave behind 


Wealth palls and honours. Fame may 


Affright us like the ghosts of friends 


not endure. 


long dead ; 


And loftier souls soon weaiy of delight. 


The old love vanished in the present 


Keep innocence ; be all a true man 


dread, 


ought ; 


They visit us to find 


Let neither pleasure tempt, nor pains 


New sorrows, alien hopes, strange 


appal : 


pleasures, other fears. 



FETTERS— RICH AND WISE— LOVE IN DEATH. 



43 



FETTERS. 

On who shall say that we are free ! 
Surely life's chains are strong to 
bind 
I'rom youth to age, from birth to death, 
Body and mind. 

We run the riotous race of youth, 

Then turn from evil things to good : 
'Tis but a slower pulse, a chill 
Of youth's hot blood. 

"We mount the difficult steeps of thought, 

Or pace the dusty paths of gain : 
'Tis but that sense receding leaves 
A keener brain. 

Time takes this too, and then we turn 

Our dim eyes to the hidden shore ; 
Life palls, and yet we long to live, — 
Ay, nothing more. 



RICH AND WISE. 

Wild flowers in spring were sweet to 
childish hands 
As riches to the wretch possessing 



And as the water-springs in desert 
lands 
Are the pale victories of patient 
thought : 
But sweeter, dearest, sweeter far, 
The hours when we together are. 

No more I know the childish joys of 

old, 
Nor yet have learnt the grave delights 

of age : 
A miser, gloat I on thy locks' rich 

gold ; 
A student, ponder on thy soul's fair 

page. 
Thus do I grow both rich and wise, 
On these fair locks and those deep 

eyes. 

Therefore in wit and wealth do I in- 
crease, 
Poring on thee, as on a fair writ 
book ; 

No panic-fear can make that rich stream 
cease, 
Nor doubt confuse the crystal of thy 
look. 

Some to the mart, some to the oratory. 

May turn them : thou art both to me. 



LOVE IN DEATH. 

Dear heart ! what a little time it is since Francis and I used to walk 

From church in the still June evenings together, busy with loving talk ; 

And now he is gone, far away over seas, to some strange foreign country, — and I 

Shall never rise from my bed any more, till the day when I come to die. 



I tried not to think of him during the prayers; but when his dear voice I heard, 
I failed to take part in the hymn ; for my heart fluttered up to my throat like a 

bird, 
And scarcely a word of the sermon I caught. I doubt 'twas a grievous sin ; 
But 'twas only one poor little hour in the week that I had to be happy in. 



4\ LOVE IN DEATH. 



When the blessing was given, and we left the dim aisles for the light of the even- 
ing star ; 

Though I durst not lift up mv eyes from the ground, yet I knew that he was not 
far. 

And I hurried on, though I fain would have stayed, till I heard his footstep draw 
near ; 

And love rising up in my breast like a flame, cast out every shadow of fear. 

Ah me ! 'twas a pleasant pathway home, — a pleasant pathway and sweet ; 
Ankle deep through the purple clover ; breast high 'mid the blossoming wheat ; 
I can hear the landrails prate through the dew, and the night-iars' tremulous 

thrill. 
And the nigiitingale pouring her passionate song from the hawthorn under the 

hill. 

One day, when we came to the wicket gate, 'neath the elms, where we used to 

part, 
His voice began to falter and break as he told me I had his heart. 
And I whispered back that mine was his : we knew what we felt long ago ; 
Six weeks are as long as a lifetime almost, when you love each other so. 

wSo we put up the banns, and were man and wife, in the sweet fading time of the 

year. 
And till Christmas was over and past, I knew no shadow of sorrow or fear. 
It seems like a dream already, alas ! a sweet dream vanished and gone. 
So hurried and brief while passing away, so long to look back upon. 

I had only had him three little months, and the world lay frozen and dead, 
When the summons came, which we feared and hoped, and he sailed over seas 

for our bread. 
Ah, well ! it is fine to be wealthy and grand, and never to need to part ; 
But 'tis better far to love and be poor than be rich with an empty heart. 

Though I thought 'twould have killed me to lose him at first, yet was he not 

going for me ? 
So I hid deep down in miy breast all the grief, which I knew it would pain him 

to see. 
He'd surely be back by the autumn, he said ; and since his last passionate kiss 
He has scarcely been out of my thoughts, day or night, for a moment, from that 

day to this. 

When I wrote to him how I thought it would be, and he answered so full of 

love, 
Ah ! there was not an angel happier thnn I, in all the white chorus above. 



LOVE IN DEATH. 45 



And I seemed to be lonely no longer, the days and the weeks passed so swiftly 

away ; 
And the March winds died, and the sweet April showers gave place to llie 

blossoms of May. 

And then came the sad summer eve, when I sat with the little frock in the sun, 
And Patience ran in with the news of the ship — Ah, v ell ! may His will be 

done. 
They said that all hands were lest, and I swooned away on the floor like a 

stone ; 
And another life came, ere I knew he was safe, and my own was over and gone. 

******* 
And now I lie helpless here, and shall never rise up again ; 
I grow weaker and weaker, day by day, till my weakness itself is a pain. 
Every morning the slow dawn creeps ; every evening I see from my bed 
The orange-gold fade into lifeless gray, and the old evening star overhead. 

Sometimes by the twilight dim, or the awful birth of the day. 
As I lie, very still, not asleep nor awake, my soul seems to flutter away ; 
And I float far beyond the stars, till I thrill with a rapturous pain, 
And ihe feeble touch of a tiny hand recalls me to life again. 

And the doctor says she will live. Ah ! 'tis hard to leave her alone. 

And to think she will never know, in the world, the love of the mother who's 

gone. 
They will tell her of me, by-and-by, and perhaps she will shed me a tear ; 
But if I should stoop to her bed in the night, she would start with a horrible 

fear. 

She will grow into girlhood, I trust, and will bask in the light of love, 
And I, if I gain to see her at all, shall only look on from above. 
I shall see her and cannot aid, though she fall into evil and woe. 
Ah, how can the angels find heart to rejoice, when they think of their dear ones 
below ? 

And Francis, he too will forget me, and go on the journey of life ; 
And I hope, though I dare not think of it yet, will take him another wife — 
St will hardly be Patience, I think, though she liked him in days gone by. 
Was that why she came ? But what thoughts are these for one who is soon to 
die? 

I hope he will come ere I go, though I feel no longer the thirst 

For the sound of his voice and the light of his eye, which I used to feel at first. 



DEAR LITTLE HANDSTILL WATERS. 



^ 



'Tis not that I care for him less, but death dries, with a finger of fire. 
The tender springs of innocent love and the torrents of strong desire. 

And I know we shall ineet again. I have done many things that are wrong, 
IJut surely the Lord of Life and of Love cannot bear to be angry long. 
I am only a girl of eighteen, and have had no teacher but love ; 
And, it may be, the sorrov/ and pain I have known will be counted for me 
above. 



the 



For I doubt if the minister knows all the depths of the goodness of God, 
When he says, He is jealous of earthly love, and bids me bow down 'neath 

rod. 
He is learned and wise, I know, but somehow to dying eyes 
God opens the secret doors of the shrine that are closed to the learned and wise, 



So now I am ready to go, for I know He will do what is best, 

Though He call me away while the sun is on high, like a child sent early to rest. 

I should like him to see her first, though the yearning is over and past : 

Bat what is that footstep upon the stair? Oh, my darling at last, at last ! 



DEAR LIT2LE HAND. 

Dear little hand that clasps my own, 
Embrowned with toil and seamed 
with strife ; 
Pink little fingers not yet grown 
To the poor strength of after-life, — 
Dear little hand ! 

Dear little eyes which smile on mine 

With the first peep of morning light ; 
Now April-wet with tears, or fine 
With dews of pity, or laughing 
bright. 
Dear little eyes ! 

Dear little voice, whose broken speech 
Ail eloquent utterance can transcend ; 

Sweet childish wisdom strong to reach 
A holier deep than love or friend : 
Dcnr little voice ! 



Dear little life ! my care to keep 

From every spot and stain of sin ; 
Sweet soul foredoomed, for joy or pain, 
To struggle and— which? to fail or 
win ? 
Dread mystical life ! 



STILL WATERS. 

A CRUEL little stream I know^ 

Which slowly, slowly crawls between 
The ooze banks, fringed with sedges 
green. 

That serve to bind its feeble flow. 

So sheltered that no passing breath 
Of west-wind stirs it ; nay, the blast 
Which strips the tall elms and is 
past. 

Scarce wakes to life its face of death. 



STILL WATERS. 



47 



On its black surface year by year 

:. The marsh flowers, grown untimely 

old, 
Shed their soft petals like a tear. 

And hopeless drown their faded 
gold. 

Deep in its darkling depths the pike 
Darts with his cruel jaws ; by niglit 

The black eels, sinuous, serpent-like. 
Twist like fell ghosts that fear the 
light. 

Spring shuns it, summer loves it not ; 

The low fat fields are lit with bloom, 
But here the watery sedges rot, 

And all the months are clothed with 
gloom. 

Autumn's first footstep sears to brown 
Its coarse green fringe ; the first cold 
breath, 

Ere yet the oak-leaf flutters down, 
Binds its dull life in icy death. 

I hate, I hate you, crawling stream ! 

Dumb, creeping, murderous wretch, 
I long 
To see the sunlit ripples gleam, 

To hear the torrent's jubilant song. 

But you, dull monster, all the years 
Lie rolling on your sullen flood, 

And take your fill of mortal tears ; 
Yet, like the Churchmen, spill not 
blood. 

The dark gap in the ice, the boat 
Keel upward, or the drifting oar ; 

Or, like of old, the little coat, 
The white clothes heaped upon the 
shore ; 



And some young life is over and 
gone. 
And some fond heart is broken in 
twain ; 
And you flow smoothly, smoothly on, 
Taking no heed for death or pain. 

They come and grapple with hooks 
until 
They reach the slimy deep, where 
lies 
The white thing, very cold and still, 
AVith death's gaze in its stony eyes. 

And you just make a ripple, and then 
Flow smoothly onv/ard : you who 
slew 

Young innocent lives of painted men, 
Long ere the crowded city grew ; 

And shall in far years yet to be, 

Pierce unborn mothers with that 
sharp pain, 

Which only a mother feels when he 
Who was her first-born comes again, 

A clay-cold heap. I would that I 
Had but the archangel's flaming 
brand ; 
So would I burn thy dull springs dry, 
And choke thy flow with hills of 
sand. 

Yet why ? Whatever soft souls prate, 
Babbling of universal good, 

Love is the sister-child of hate. 

And all good things are bought with 
blood. 

Virtue were not if vice were not, 

Nor darkness if there were not light. 

Creep on ; fulfil thy murderous lot ; 
For Wrong has equal life with Right. 



48 



IN REGENT STREET. 



IN REGENT STREET. 

One of the nightly hundreds who 

pass 
Wearily, hopelessly, under the gas. 

But the old sad words had a strange 

new tone, 
And the wild laugh seemed to sink to 

a moan. 

So that turning as one constrained to 

look, 
The strange sight stifled the voice of 

rebuke : 

For I looked on a girl's face pure and 

fair, 
Blue-eyed, and crowned with a glory 

of hair, 

Such as my dead child-sister might 

own, 
Were she not a child stili, but a 

woman grown ; 

Full of the tender graces that come 
To the cherished light of an ancient 
home ; 

Even to that touch of a high disdain, 
Which is born of a name without blot 
or stain. 

Strange ; as if one should chance to 

meet 
An angel of light in that sordid street ! 

"O child, what misery brings you 

here, 
To this place of vileness and weeping 

and fear ? " 



"I am no more than the rest," she 

said. 
Proudly averting her beautiful head ! 

Then no response, till some kinder 

word 
Stole in unawares, and her heart was 

stirred. 

" I was a wife but the other day. 
Now I am left without hope or stay ! 

' ' Work did I ask ? What work is for 

you? 
What work can those delicate fingers 

do? 

"Service? But how could I bear to 

part 
From the child with whom I had left 

my heart ? 

" Alms ? — Yes, at first ; then a pitiless 

No: 
The State would provide me whither 

to go. 

" But in sordid prisons it laid my head 
With the thief and the harlot ; there- 
fore I fled, 

'* One thing alone had I left untried, 
Then I put off the last rag of pride." 

" What came? ' You were of an hon- 
oured race. 

Now you must live with your own 
disgrace.' 

"But many will buy where few will 

give, 
And I die every day that my child may 

live." 



FROM THE DESERT— DUMB. 



49 



Motherly love sunk to this ! Ah, well, 
Teach they not how He went down into 
hell : 

Only blind me in heart and brain, 
Or ever I look on the like again. 



FROM THE DESERT. 

Thou hast visited me with Thy storms, 
And the vials of Thy sore displeasure 
Thou hast poured on my head, like a 

bitter draught 
Poured forth without stint or measure ; 
Thou hast bruised me as flax is bruised ; 
Made me clay in the potter's wheel ; 
Thou hast hardened Thy face like steel, 
And cast down my soul to the ground ; 
Burnt my life in the furnace of fire, 

like dross, 
And left me in prison where souls are 

bound ; 
Yet my gain is more than my loss. 

What if Thou hadst led my soul 

To the pastures where dull souls feed ; 

And set my steps in smooth paths, far 

away 
From the feet of those that bleed ; 
Penned me in low, fat plains, 
Where the air is as still as death, 
And Thy great winds are sunk to a 

breath, 
And Thy torrents a crawling stream. 
And the thick steam of wealth goes up 

day and night. 
Till Thy sun gives a veiled light, 
And heaven shows like a vanished 

dream ! 

VVhat if Thou hadst set my feet 
With the rich in a gilded room ; 



And made me to sit where the scorners 

sit, 
Scoffing at death and doom ! 
What if I had hardened my heart 
With dark counsels line upon line ; 
And blunted my soul with meat and 

wine, 
Till my ears had grown deaf to the 

bitter cry 
Of the halt and the weak and the 

impotent ; 
Nor hearkened, lapt in a dull content, 
To the groanings of those who die ! 

My being had waxed dull and dead 

With the lusts of a gross desire ; 

But now Thou hast purged me throughly, 

and burnt 
My shame with a living fire. 
So burn me, and purge my will 
Till no vestige of self remain, 
And I stand out white without spot or 

stain. 
Then let Thy flaming angel at last 
Smite from me all that has been before ; 
And sink me, freed from the load of 

the past. 
In Thy dark depths evermore. 



DUMB. 

All men are poets if they might but 
tell 

The dim ineffable changes which llic 
sight 

Of natural beauty works on them : the 
charm 

Of those first days of Spring, when life 
revives 

And all the world is bloom : the white- 
fringed green 

Of summer seas swirlin2[ around the base 



so 



DUMB. 



Of overhanging cliffs ; the golden 


The loneliness of soul, which truth too 


gleam 


oft 


Seen from some breezy hill, where far 


Gives to reward the faith which casts 


and wide 


aside 


The fields grow ripe for harvest ; or the 


All things for her ; or saintly lives 


storm 


obscure, 


Smiting the leaden surf, or echoing 


Spent in a sweet compassion, till they 


On nightly lakes and unsuspected hills, 


gain. 


Revealed in lurid light j or first per- 


Living, some glow of heaven ; or pas- 


ceived, 


sionate love. 


High in mid-heaven, above the rosy 


Bathing our poor world in a mystic 


clouds, 


light, 


The everlasting snows. 


Seen once, then lost for ever. These 


And Art can move, 


can stir 


To higher minds, an influence as great 


Life to its depths, till silence grows a 


As Nature's self; when the rapt gazer 


load 


marks 


Too hard to bear, and the rapt soul 


The stainless mother folding arms 


would fain 


divine 


Speak with strange tongues which 


Around the Eternal Child, or pitying 


startle as they come. 


love 


Like the old saints who spake at 


Nailed to the dreadful cross, or the 


Pentecost. 


vi'hite strength 




Of happy heathen gods, or serpent 


But we are dumb, we are dumb, and 


coils 


may not tell 


Binding the agonized limbs, till from 


\Vhat stirs within us, tliough the soul 


their pain 


may throb 


Is born a thing of beauty for all time. 


And tremble with its passion, though 




the heart 


And more than Nature, more than Art 


Dissolve in weeping : dumb. Nature 


can move 


may spread 


The awakened soul — heroic soaring 


Sublimest sights of beauty ; Art in- 


deeds ; 


spire 


When the young champion falls in 


High thoughts and pure of God -like 


hopeless fight. 


sacrifice ; 


Striking for home ; or when, by truth 


Yet no word comes. Heroic daring 


constrained. 


deeds 


The martyr goes forth cheerful to his 


Thrill us, yet no word comes ; we are 


fate— 


dumb, we are dumb, 


The dungeon, or the torture, or, more 


Save that from finer souls at times may 


hard, 


rise, 


The averted gaze of friends, the loss of 


Once in an age, faint inarticulate 


love, 


sounds. 



ii 



DUMB. 



51 



Low halting tones of wonder, such as 


As does the sun our features, all the 


come 


play 


From children looking on the stars, but 


Of passion, all the changeful tides of 


still 


thought. 


With power to open to the listening 


The mystery, the beauty, the delight, 


ear 


The fear, the horror, of our lives, — our 


The Fair Divine Unknown, and to 


being 


unseal 


Would blaze up heavenward in a sud- 


Heaven's inner gates before us ever- 


den flame, 


more. 


Spend itself, and be lost. 




Wherefore 'tis well 


Ah, few and far between ! The earth 


This narrow boundary that hedges in 


grows green, 


The strong and weak alike. Thought 


Art's glorious message speaks from year 


could not live. 


to year, 


Nor speech, in that pure aether which 


Great deeds and high are done from 


girds round 


day to day. 


Life's central dwelling-place. Only 


But the voice comes not which has 


the dull 


power to wake 


And grosser atmosphere of earth it is 


The sleeping soul within, and animate 


Which vibrates to the sweet birds' song. 


The beauty which informs them, lend- 


and brings 


ing speech 


Heaven to the wondering ear. Only 


To what before was dumb. They 


the stress. 


come, they go, 


The pain, the hope, the longing, the 


Those sweet impressions spent on sepa- 


constraint 


rate souls, 


Of limited faculties circling round and 


Like raindrops on the endless ocean- 


round 


plains. 


The grim circumference, and finding 


Lost as they fall. The world rolls on ; 


naught 


lives spring. 


Of outlet to the dread unknown be- 


Blossom, and fade ; the play of life is 


yond. 


played 


Can lend the poet voice. Only the 


More vivid than of old — a wider stage, 


weight, 


With more consummate actors ; yet 


The dulness of our senses, which makes 


the dull. 


dumb 


Cold deeps of sullen silence swallow up 


And hushes half the finer utterance, 


The strain, and it is lost. But if we 


Makes possible the song, and modulates 


might 


The too exalted music, that it falls 


Paint all things as they are, find voice 


So soft upon the listening soul, that 


to speak 


life. 


The thoughts now mute within us, let 


Not withered by the awful harmony, 


the soul 


Nor drunk with too much sweetness, 


Trace on its sensitive surface vividly. 


nor struck blind 



52 



FAITH WITHOUT SIGHT— CAGED. 



By the too vivid presence of the 
Unknown, 

Fulfils its round of duty— elevated, 

Not slain by too much splendour- 
comforted, 

Not thunder-smitten — soothed, not laid 
asleep — 

And ever, through the devious maze of 
being, 

Fares in slow narrowing cycles to the 
end. 



FAITH WITHOUT SIGHT. 

No angel comes to us to tell 

Glad news of our beloved dead ; 

Nor at the old familiar board, 

They sit among us, breaking bread. 

Three days we wait before the tomb, 
Nay, life-long years ; and yet no 
more, 
For all our passionate tears, we find 
The stone rolled backward from the 
door. 

Yet are they risen as He is risen ; 

For no eternal loss we grieve. 
Blessed are they who ask no sign, 

And, never having seen, believe. 



CAGED. 

Alas for fame ! I saw a genius sit. 
Draining full bumpers with a trem- 
bling hand. 
And roll out rhapsodies of folly, lit 
By soaring fancies hard to under- 
stand. 



Lonely he seemed, whom all men 
should admire ; 
And some were there who sneered a 
covert sneer. 
Quenching with logic cold the sacred 
fire ; 
And one who hardly checked a rising 
tear 



Because life's order binds with chains 
of steel 
The struggling individual soul ; 
because 
The fair fine flower of life doth oft 
conceal 
A hidden worm which always frets 
and gnaws 
The inner heart from which all perfumes 
come. 
And round the deep-set core of 
golden fire 
Foul creeping creatures make their' 
constant heme — 
Black hatred, wild revolt, and groiS 
desire. 

What is this bar that Nature loves to 
place 
Before the tco aspiring heart and 
brain, — 
Bringing down goodly hopes to deep 
disgrace. 
Keeping high pleasure balanced by 
low pain, 
Pure thoughts by secret failings, subtler 
joys 
With grosser sense or hopeless depths 
■ of woe, — 
Setting our lives in barren counter- 
poise, 
Which says. Thus far, no further 
shalt thou go, ,j 



TOO MUCH KNOWLEDGE, 



Is it that Nature, envious of her own, 
Even as the fabled gods of primal 
years, 
Because to too great stature it is 
grown, 
Hates her consummate work, and 
inly fears 
Lest the soul, once enfranchised, soar 
too high, 
Up to some Spiritual place of Souls, 
Where the world's feeble echoes faint 
and die, 
And in fine waves a purer tether 
rolls? 

There is no infinite in Nature. All 
Is finite, set within a self-made 
bound. 
Thought builds round space itself a 
brazen wall, 
And hates the barren cycle's endless 
round. 
Life grown too perfect is not life at all ; 
Some hidden discords sweeten every 
strain ; 
No virtue is, where is no power to fall, 
Nor true delight without a touch of 
pain. 

And this it is that limits evermore 

The life of man to this its low estate, 
And gives the soul's light pinions power 
to soar 
Only a little space toward heaven's 
gate. 
Creatures we are of the earth, and not 
the sky, 
Bound down, constrained, confined; 
and yet 'tis well : 
No angel's wings are ours to mount on 
high, 
No chains have power to keep our 
souls in hell. 



And since to realms of thought we may 
aspire, 
Higher than these in which v>-e 
breathe and are, 
And know within the same creative 
fire 
As that which lights and warms the 
furthest star. 
So should our restless spirits grow con- 
tent 
With what is theirs, nor covet to be 
free ; 
.Since boundless power is oft most im- 
potent, 
And narrow bonds the truest liberty. 



TOO MUCH KNOWLEDGE. 

Oh, if we had but eyes to see 
The glory which around us lies. 

To read the secrets of the earth, 

And know the splendours of the 
skies ; 

And if we had but ears to hear 

The psalm of life which upward rolls 

From desert tent and city street. 
From every meeting-place of souls ; 

And if we had but tongues to tell 
The dumb thoughts that shall ne'er 
be heard. 
The inarticulate prayers which rise 
From hearts by passionate yearnings 
stirred, — 

Our souls would parch, like Semele's, 
When her dread Lord blazed forth 
confessed. 
Ah, sometimes too much knowledge 
blights, 
And ignorance indeed is blest ! 



54 



ON A FUG HI' OF LADY-BIRDS. 



ON A FLIGHT OF LAD Y-BIRDS. 

Over the summer sea, 

Floating on delicate wings, 
Comes an unnumbered host 

Of beautiful fragile things ; 
Whence they have come, or what 

Blind impulse has forced them 
here, 
What still voice marshalled them out 

Over wide seas without fear, 
You cannot tell, nor I. 

But to-day the air is thick 

With these strangers from far 
away : 
On hot piers and drifting ships 
The weary travellers stay. 
. On the sands where to-night they 
will drown. 
On the busy waterside street. 
Trampled in myriads down 
' By the careless wayfarers' feet 
The beautiful creatures lie. 

WHio knows what myriads have sunk 

To drown in the oily waves, 
Till all our sea-side world shows 

Like a graveyard crowded with 
graves ? 
Humble creatures and small, 

How shall the Will which sways 
This enormous unresting ball, 

Through endless cycles of days, 
Take thought for them or care ? 

And yet, if the greatest of kings, 
With the wisest of sages com- 
bined, 

Never could both devise — • 

Strong arm and inventive mind — 



So wondrous a shining coat, 

Such delicate wings and free, 
As have these small creatures which 
float 
Over the breathless sea 
On this summer morning so fair. 
* * * * 

And the life, the wonderful life, 

Which not all the wisdom of earth 
Can give to the humblest creature 
that moves 
The mystical process of birth — 
The nameless principle which doth 
lurk 
Far away beyond atom, or monad, 
or cell. 
And is truly His own most marvel- 
lous work — • 
Was it good to give it, or, given, 
well 
To squander it thus away ? 

For surely a man might think 

So precious a gift and grand — 
God's essence in part — should be 
meted out 
With a thrifty and grudging hand. 
And hard by, on the yellowing 
corn, 
Myriads of tiny jaws 
Are bringing the husbandman's 
labour to scorn. 
And the cankerworm frets and 
gnaws. 
Which was made for these for a 
prey. 

For a prey for these ? but, oh ! 
Who shall read us the riddle of 
life— 
The prodigal waste, which naught 
can redress 
But a cycle of sorrow and strife, 



ON AN OLD MINSTER. 



55 



The continual sequence of pain, 
The perpetual triumph of wrong, 

The whole creation in travail to make 
A victory for the strong, 
And not with frail insects alone ? 

For is not the scheme worked out 

Among us who are raised so high ? 
Are thei-e no wasted minds among 
men — 
No hearts that aspire and sigli 
For the hopes which the years steal 
away. 
For the labour they love, and its 
meed of fame, 
And feel the bright blade grov.' rusted 
within, 
Or are born to inherited shame. 
And a portion with those that groan ? 

How are we fettered and caged 
Within our dark prison-house 
here ! 
We are made to look for a loving 
plan ; 
We find everywhere sorrow and 
fear. 
We look for the triumph of Good ; 
And, from all the wide world 
around, 
The lives that are spent cry upward 
to heaven. 
From the slaughtei -house of the 
ground, 
Till we feel that Evil is lord. 

And yet are we bound to believe. 

Because all our nature is so. 
In a Ruler touched by an infinite 
ruth 
For all His creatures below. 
Bound, though a mocking fiend 
point 



To the waste, and ruin, and 
pain — 
Bound, though our souls should be 
bowed in despair — 
Bound, though wrong triumph 
again and again. 
And we cannot answer a word. 



ON AN OLD MINSTER. 

Old minster, when my years were few, 
And life seemed endless to the boy ; 
Clear yet and vivid is the joy 

With which I gazed and thought on 
you. 

Thin shaft and flower-wrought capital, 
High-springing arch, and blazoned 

pane, 
Quaint gurgoyles stretching heads 
profane, 
And stately throne and carven stall. 

The long nave lost in vaporous gray, 
The mailed recumbent forms which 

wait. 
In mockery of earthly state, 

The coming of the dreadful day. 

The haunted aisles, the gathering 
gloom, 
By some stray shaft of eve made 

fair : 
The stillness of the mouldering air. 
The faded legends of the tomb. 

I loved them all. What care had I, — 
I, the young heir of all the Past, — 
That neither youth nor life might 
last. 

That all things living came to die ! 



:6 



ON AN OLD MINUTER. 



The Past was spent, the Past was done, 
The Present was my own to hold ; 
Far off within a haze of gold 

Stretched the fair Future, scarce begun. 

For me did pious builders rear 

Those reverend walls ; for me the 

song 
Of supplication, ages long, 

Had gone up daily, year by year. 

And thus I loved you ; but to-day 
The long Past near and nearer shows ; 
Less bright, more clear, the Future 
grows, 

And all the world is growing gray. 

But you scarce bear a deeper trace 
Of time upon your solemn brow ; 
No sadder, stiller, grayer now. 

Than when I loved your reverend face. 

And you shall be when I am not ; 
And you shall be a thing of joy 
To many a frank and careless boy 

When I and mine are long forgot. 

Grave priests shall here with holy rage, 
, Whose grandsires are as yet unborn, 
Lash, with fierce words of saintly 
scorn. 
The heats of youth, the greed of age. 

Proud prelates sit on that high throne. 
Whose young forefathers drive the 

plough 
While Norman lineage nods below, 

In aged tramp or withered crone. 

And white-haired traders feign to pray, 
Sunk deep in thoughts of gain and 

gold; 
And sweet flower-faces growing old, 

Give place to fresher blooms than they. 



With such new shape of creed and 
rite 
As none now living may foretell ; 
A faith of love which needs not 
hell, 
A stainless worship, pure and white. 

Or, may be, some reverting change 
To the old faith of vanished days : 
The incensed air, the mystic praise, 

The barbarous ritual, quaint and 
strange. 

Who knows? But they are wrong who 
say 
Man's work is brief and quickly past ; 
If you through all these centuries 
last, 
While they who built you pass away. 

The wind, the rain, the sand, are slow ; 

Man fades before his work ; scant 
trace 

Time's finger findeth to efface 
Of him whom seventy years lay low. 

The grass grows green awhile, and then 
Is as before ; the work he made 
Casts on his grave a reverend shade 

Through long successive lives of men. 

But he ! where is he? Lo, his name 
Has vanished from his wonted place. 



Unknown his soaring hopes of fame. 

Only the creatures of the brain, — 
Just laws, wise precepts, deathless 

verse ; 
These weave a chaplet for the hearse. 
And through all change unchanged 
remain. 



IHE BITTER HARVEST— OF LOVE AND SLEEP. 



57 



These will I love as age creeps on ; 

Gray minster, these are ever young ; 

These shall be read and loved and 
sung 
When every stone of you is gone. 

No hands have built the monument 
Which to all ages shall endure ; — 
High thoughts and fancies, sweet and 
pure, 

Lives in the quest of goodness spent. 

These, though no visible forms confine 
Their spiritual essence fair ; 
Are deathless as the soul they bear, 

And, as its Maker is, divine. 



THE BITTER HARVEST. 

Who reaps the harvest of his soul. 
And garners up thought's golden 
grain, 

For him in vain life's tempests rave. 
Fate's rude shocks buffet him in vain. 

The storms which shipwreck feebler 
souls, 

Beat harmlessly on him ; the wind. 
Which whirls away the domes of pride. 

Braces the sinews of his mind. 

He is set within a tower of strength. 
Beyond thick walls and cloisters 
still ; 

Where, as he sits, no faintest breath 
Stirs the smooth current of his will. 

He is stretched in a smiling valley, 
where, 
When hills are dark, the full sun 
shines ; 
Brings gold upon the waving fields. 
And purple clusters on the vines. 



He lies in a boundless sylvan shade. 
While all the fields are parched 
around ; 
And hears a sweet bird, singing, sing- 
ing, 
With one clear monotone of sound. 

Far, far away from the busy crowd 
And chaffering of the mart, he stands, 

Like a statue on a lonely hill. 

Pondering a scroll within its hands. 

Or one who, from high convent walls. 
Looks down at eve upon the plain, 

And sees the children at their sport, 
And turns to chant and prayer again; 

So rich, and yet so very poor. 
So fruitful, yet so void of fruit ; 

Removed from human hopes and fears, 
Far as the man is from the brute ; 

So troubled, 'neath a face of calm ; 

So bound with chains, though seem- 
ing free ; 
So dead, though with a name to live, 

That it were better not to be. 



OF LOVE AND SLEEP. 

I SAW Sleep stand by an enchanted 

wood. 
Thick lashes drooping o'er her heavy 

eyes : 
Leaning against a flower-cupped tree 

she stood. 
The night air gently breathed with 

slumbrous sighs. 
Such cloak of silence o'er the world 

was spread, 
As on Nile sands enshrouds the mighty 

dead. 



58 



OF LOVE AND SLEEP. 



About her birds were dumb, and blooms 

were bowed, 
And a thick heavy sweetness filled 

the air ; 
White robed she seemed ; and hidden 

as in a cloud, 
A star-like jewel in her raven hair. 
Downward to earth her cold torch 

would she turn 
With feeble fires that might no longer 

burn. 

Ana in her languid limbs and loosened 
zone 
Such beauty dwelt ; and in her rip- 
pling hair, 

As of old time was hers, and hers 
alone. 
The mother of gods and men divinely 
fair ; 

When whiter than white foam or sand 
she lay, 

The fairest thing beneath the eye of 
day. 

To her came Love, a comely youth and 

strong, 
Fair as the morning of a day in 

June ; 
Around him breathed a jocund air of 

song, 
And his limbs moved as to a joyous 

tune : 
With golden locks blown back, and 

eyes aflame, 
To where the sleeping maiden leant, he 

came. 



Then they twain passed within that 
mystic grove 
Together, and with them I, myself 
unseen. 



Oh, strange, sweet land ! wherein all 

men may prove 
The things they would, the things 

which might have been ; 
Hopeless hopes blossom, withered youth 

revives. 
And sunshine comes again to darkened 

lives. 



What sights were theirs in that blest 

wonder-land ? 
See, the white mountain-summits, 

framed in cloud, 
Redden with sunset ; while below them 

stand 
The solemn pine-woods like a funeral 

crowd ; 
And lower still the vineyards twine, and ^ 

make 
A double vintage in the tranquil lake. 

Or, after storm-tost nights, on some sea 

isle 
The sudden tropical morning bursts ; 

and lo ! 
Bright birds and feathery palms, the 

green hills smile, 
Strange barks, with swarthy crews, 

dart to and fro ; 
And on the blue bay, glittering like a 

crown, 
The white domes of some fair historic 

town. 

Or, they fare northward ever, north- 
ward still. 
At midnight, under the unsetting 
sun ; 
O'er endless snows, from hill to icy 
hill, 
WHiere silence reigns with death, and 
life is done : 



BLIND. 



59 



Till from the North a sweet wind sud- 


All these they knew ! and then a breeze 


denly ; 


of day 


And hark ! the warm waves of the 


Stirred the dark wood ; and then they 


fabulous sea. 


seemed to come 




Forth with reluctant feet among the 


Or, some still eve, when summer days 


gray. 


are long. 


Bare fields, unfanciful ; and all the 


And the mown hay is sweet, and 


flame 


wheat is green, 


Was burnt from out Love's eyes, and 


They hear some wood-bird sing the old 


from his hair. 


fair song 


And his smooth cheek was marked with 


Of joys to be, greater than yet have 


lines of care. 


been; 




Stretched 'neath the snowy hawthorn. 


And paler showed the maid, more pure 


till the star, 


and white 


Hung high in heaven, warns them that 


And holier than before. But when I 


home is far. 


said, 




" Sweet eyes, be opened ; " lo, the un- 


Or, on the herbless, sun-struck hills, by 


veiled sight 


night, 
Under the silent peaks, they hear the 


W^as as the awful vision of the dead ! 


Then knew I, breathing slow, with 


loud 


difficult breath, 


Wild flutes ; and onward, by the ghostly 


That Love was one with Life, and 


light, 


Sleep with Death. 


Whirled in nude dances, sweeps the 




maddened crowd ; 




Till the fierce eddy seize them, and they 


BLIND. 


prove 




The shame, the rapture, of unfettered 


The girl who from her father's door 


love. 


Sees the cold storm-cloud sweep the 


Or, by the sacred hearth they seem to 


sea. 
Cries, wrestling with her anguish sore, 


sit. 


My love ! my love ! ah, where is he? 


While firelight gleams on many a 


And locks her fears within her breast. 


sunny head ; 


Sickening ; while 'neath the breatii- 


At that fair hour, before the lamp is 


less blaze 


lit, 


He lies, and dreams, in broken rest. 


When hearts are fullest, though no 


Of homely faces,— happier days. 


word be said, — 




When the world fades, and rank and 


But when a calm is on the deep, 


wealth and fame, 


And scarcely from the quivering blue, 


Seem, matched with this, no better 


The waves' soft murmur, half asleep. 


than a name. 


Speaks hope that he is well, and true : 



6o 



rO HER PICTURE. 



The brave ship sinks to rise no more 
Beneath the thundeious surge; and 
he, 

A pale corpse floating on the sea, 
Or dashed hke seaweed on the shore. 



TO HER PICTURE. 

As one who on a lonely bed of pain 
Feels the soft hand he felt when he 

was young ; 
Or, who at eve, on some far Eastern 

plain, 
Hears the old songs once by his 

mother sung : 
So to me, looking on thy portrait, dear, 
Thou and my youth and love are ever 

near. 

It may be that the painter failed to 
show, 
How should he not ? the soul within 
thine eyes, — 
Their blue unruffled depths, thy cheeks 
aglow 
With virgin blushes that unbidden 
rise ; 
. Thy coral lips, thy white neck, round, 
and fair. 
Or the sweet prodigal auburn of thy 
hair. 

How should he? Not for him thou 

wast, but me ; 
Love shot no sudden splendour in his 

eyes ; 
Love guided not his hand, content to 

see 
Mere beauty, as of sunset-hills or 

skies ; 
Nor soothed his dull ear with the mystic 

strain, 
Heard once a life, and nevermore again. 



Only the lovely shell he saw ; the cloak, 
The perfect vesture of the hidden 

soul. 
Not for his eyes thy slumbering angel 

woke. 
Stretched in deep sleep, where love's 

broad waters roll : 
Had he but seen her wings of silver 

move, 
He had forgot to paint, and learned to 

love. 

Vet is his skill to me for ever blest, 
For that which it has left of grace 

and truth ; 
Those sweet eyes shine, yet need no 

time of rest, 
Still thy fair cheek retains its rounded 

youth. 
In wakeful nights I light my lamp, and 

know 
The same dear face I knew long years 

ago. 

Yet worn am I, too old for love, and 

gray. 
Too faithful heart, thou shouldst not 

still abide 
With such as I, nor longer deign to stay: 
These are the follies wiser worldlings 

chide. 
Thou wouldst transfer those glances, 

wert thou wise, 
To younger lives and more responsive 

eyes. 

Ah ! no, remain ; not thus you looked 
of yore ; 
Another, perhaps more worthy, bore 
the prize ; 
I could not tell you then the love I 
bore. 
Or read the soft requital in your 
eyes ; 



THE RETURN— FOR EVER. 



61 



Now no change comes, now thou art 

always kind, 
Then thou wast cold and changeful as 

the wind. 



THE RETURN, 

He stood above the well-known shore ; 

Behind, the sea stretched dull and 
gray : 
And slowly with the breeze of morn 

The great ship forged away. 

Almost he wished she might return. 
And speed him to some further 
change ; 

The old scenes greeted him again, 
And yet all things were strange. 

There were the dreams he used to dream 
In the long nights when day was 
here ; 

The shady Sunday path to church, 
The winding brooklet clear. 

The woods with violets blue in Spring, 
The fallow where they chased the 
hare, 

The gable peeping through the elms, 
All filled him with despair. 

For all was there except the past^ 
The past, his youth for dross had 
sold ! 

The past which after-years in vain 
Prize more than all their gold. 

Then age fell on him with a flash, 
Time smote him, and his soul grew 
gray, 

And thoughts in busier scenes unknown, 
Chased youth and hope away. 



The past, which seemed so near before, 
A step might gain it, came to be 

A low cloud sunk beyond a gulf, 
Wider than any sea. 

Nor what the present had in store, 
Knowing ; at last his great suspense 

Grew to a bitter load of pain, 
Too great for mortal sense. 

So, by the well-known paths at last. 
He gained the well-remembered door. 

Sick for a voice which he should hear. 
Ah ! never, never, more 

Strange children round, a stringer's 
face 
Of wonder, so the dream was o'er. 
He turned ; the dead past comes not 
back. 
No, never, never, more. 



FOR EVER. 

For ever and for ever 
The changeless oceans roar : 

And dash their thundering surges down 
Upon the sounding shore : 

Yet this swift soul, this lightning will, 

Shall these, while they roll on, be still ? 

For ever and for ever 

The eternal mountains rise, 
And lift their virgin snows on high 

To meet the silent skies. 
Yet shall this soul which measures all, 
While these stand steadfast, sink and 
fall? 

For ever and for ever 

The swift suns roll through space ; 
From age to age they wax and wane. 

Each in its ordered place : 



62 



BEHIND THE VEIL. 



Yet shall this soul, whose inner eye 


That from those myriads kneeling, 


Foretells their cycles, fade and die ? 


prostrate, bowed, 




A low moan rises to the throne on 


For ever and for ever 


high,— 


We have been, and we are, 


Not shut out quite by error's thickest 


Unchanging as the ocean wave, 


cloud, — 


Unresting as the star : 


Help us ! we faint, we die. 


Though suns stand still, and time be 


Our knees are weak, our eyes arc 


o'er, 


blind ; 


We are, and shall be, evermore. 


We seek what ^^'e shall never find. 




Show but Thy face, and we are Thine, 




Unknown, Ineffable, Divine. 


BEHIND THE VEIL. 


I stood before 




The glaring temples on the burning 


I PACED along 


plain ; 


The dim cathedral wrapped in reverend 


I heard the hideous roar 


gloom : 


Rise to the stars to drown the shrieks 


I heard the sweet child's song 


of pain, 


Spring upwards like a fountain ; and 


What time the murderous idol swept 


the boom 


along. 


Of the tempestuous organ-music swell ; 


I listened to the innocent, mystic song. 


The hushed low voices and the silvery 


Breathed to the jewelled Lotus ever- 


bell; 


more. 


The incense-laden air ; the kneeling 


In the elder lands, through the ages. 


throng : 


like a sigh, 


I knew them all, and seemed to hear 


And heard in low, sweet chant, and 


the cry 


hateful roar, — 


Of countless myriads, rising deep and 


Help us ! we faint, we die. 


strong, — 


Our knees are weak, our eyes are blind ; 


Help us ! we faint, we die. 


We seek what we shall never find. 


Our knees are weak, our eyes are blind ; 


Show but Thy face, and we are Thine, 


We seek what we shall never find. 


Unknown, Ineffable, Divine ! 


Show but Thy face, and we are Thine, 


Ay : everywhere 


Unknown, Ineffable, Divine ! 


Echoes the same exceeding bitter cry. 


I heard the loud 


Yet can the Father bear 


Muezzin from the slender minaret call 


To hide His presence from the children's 


" To prayer. To prayer ; " and lo ! the 


eye; 


busy crowd. 


Lets loose on good and bad the plague 


Merchant and prince and water-carrier. 


and sword ; 


all 


And though wrong triumph, answers 


Turned from the world, and, rapt in 


not a word ? 


worship, knelt. 


Only deep down in the heart doth He 


Facing the holy city ; and I felt 


declare 



VJSIONS. 



63 



His constant presence; there, though 

the outward sky 
Be darkened, shines a little speck of 

fair, — 
A light which cannot die. 
Though knees be weak, and eyes be 

blind ; 
Though we may seek, and never find ; 
Here doth His hidden glory shine. 
Unknown, Ineffable, Divine ! 



VISIONS. 

Oi '1' in the blazing summer noon, 
And oft beneath the frosty moon. 
When earth and air were hushed and 

still, 
And absolute silence seemed to fill 
The farthest border- lands of space, 
I loved in childish thought to trace 
Glimpses of change, which might trans- 
form 
The voiceless calm to furious storm ; 
Broke the dull spell, which comes to 

bind 
In after-years the sluggish mind ; 
And pictured, borne on fancy's wings, 
\ The end of all created things. 

Then have I seen with dreaming eye, 
' The blue depths of the vaulted sky 

Rent without noise ; and in their stead 
j A wonder-world of fancy spread, 
I A golden city, with domes and spires, 
' Lit by a strange sun's mystic fires. 

Portals of dazzling chrysolite, 

Long colonnades of purest white ; 

Streets paved with gold and jewels rare j 
i And higher, in the ambient air, 
I A shining Presence undefined : 
! Swift seraphs stooping swift as wind 

From pole to pole, and that vast throng 
; Which peopled Dante's world of song ; 



The last great inquest which shall close 
The tale of human joys and woes ; 
The dreadful Judge, the opening tomb, 
And all the mystery of doom. 
Then woke to find the vision vain. 
And sun or moon shine calm again. 

No longer, save in memory's glass. 
These vanished visions come and pass ; 
The clearer light of fuller day 
Has chased these earlier dreams away. 
Faith's eye grows dim with too much 

light, 
And fancy flies our clearer sight. 
But shall we mourn her day is o'er. 
That these rapt visions come no more ? 
Nay ; knowledge has its splendours 

too. 
Brighter than Fancy's brightest hue. 
I gaze now on the heavens, and see 
How, midst their vast immensity, 
By cosmic laws the planets roll, 
Sped onwards by a central soul ; 
How farther still, and still more far. 
World beyond world, star beyond star, 
So many, and so far, that speech 
And thought must fail the sum to reach. 
This universe of nature teems 
With things more strange than fancy's 

dreams ; 
And so at length, with clearer eye, 
Soar beyond childhood's painted sky, 
Up to the Lord of great and small. 
Not onewhere, but pervading all : 
Who made the music of the spheres, 
And yet inclines an ear that hears 
The faintest prayer, the humblest sigh, 
The strong man's groan, the childish 

cry; 
Who guides the stars, yet without whom 
No humblest floweret comes to bloom. 
No lowliest creature comes to birth, 
No dead leaf flutters to the earth : 



64 



DOUBT^ST. DAVID'S HEAD. 



Who breathed into our souls the breath, 


Better than this, 


Which neither time nor change nor 


The burning sins of youth, the old 


death, 


man's greed. 


Nor hurtHng suns at random hurled 


Than thus to live inane ; 


And dashed together, world on world. 


To sit and read. 


Can ever kill or quench, till He 


And with blind brain 


Bends down, and bids them not to be. 


D.iily to treasure up a deadly doubt, 




And live a life from which tlic liglii 




has fled. 


DOUBT. 


And faith's pure fire gone out. 


Who but has seen 




Once in his life, when youth and health 


Until at last. 


ran high. 


For some blest souls, but never here 


The fair, clear face of truth 


for all. 


Grow dark to his eye ? 


Burns out a sudden light, 


Who but has known 


And breaks the thrall, 


Cold mists of doubt and icy questionings 


And doubt has fled. 


Creep round him like a nightmare, 


And the soul rises, with a clearer sight 


blotting out 


For this its pam, its sorrow, its despair, 


The sight of better things. 


To God and truth and right. 


A hopeless hour, 




When all the voices of the soul are 


Plead we for those 


dumb. 


Gently and humbly, as befittelh men 


When o'er the tossing seas 


On whom the same chill shade 


No ligh may come, . 


Broods now as then. 


Wlien God and right 


So shall they learn 


Are gone, and seated on the empty 


How an eternal wisdom rules above, 


throne 


And all the cords of Being arc 


Are dull philosophies and words of wind, 


bound fast 


Making His praise their own. 


To an unfailing love. 



Sr. DA VID'S HEAD. 



Salt sprays deluge it, wild waves buffet it, hurricanes rave ; 
Summer and winter, the depths of the ocean girdle it round ; 
In leaden dawns, in golden noon -tides, in silvery moonlight 
Never it ceases to hear the old sea's mystical sound. 

Surges vex it evermore 

By gray cave and sounding shore. 



ST. DAFJD'S HEAD. 65 

Think of the numberless far-away centuries, long before man, 

When the hot earth with monsters teemed, and with monsters the deep. 

And the red sun loomed faint, and the moon was caught fast in the motionless air, 

And the warm waves seethed through the haze in a secular sleep. 

Rock was here and headland then. 

Ere the little lives of men. 

Over it long the mastodons crashed through the tropical forest, 
And the great bats swooped overhead through the half-defined blue ; 
Then they passed, and the hideous ape-man, speechless and half-erect, 
Through weary ages of time tore and gibbered and slew. 

Grayer skies and chiller air, 

But the self-same rock was there. 

Then the savage came and went, and Briton and Roman and Saxon, 
Till our England grew rich and great, and her white sails covered the sea ; 
Thus through all this long story of ours, civil progress and vanquished foen;aii, 
From Crecy to Trafalgar, from the bondsman down to the free, 

Still those dark rocks, and beneath 

Keeps the sea its face of death. 

So it shall be when the tide of our greatness has ebbed to the shallows ; 
So when there floats not a ship on this storm-tossed westerly main. 
Hard by, the minster crumbles, the city has shrunk to a village ; 
Thus shall we shrink one day, and our forests be pathless again ; 

And the headland stern shall stand. 

Guarding an undiscovered land. 

Vex it, O changeless ocean ; rave round it, tempests unceasing ; 
Sink it, great earthquakes, deep in the depths of the fathomless sea ; 
Burn them, fierce fires of the centre, burn rock and ocean together, 
Till the red globe flare throughout space, through the ages to be. 

Cease, make an end, dull world, begone • 

How shall I cease while you roll on ? 

Time, oh, horrible ! Space, oh, terrible ! Infinite Void ! 
Dreadful abysses of Being ! blighting a finite brain ; 
How shall the creatures of thought subsist, when the thinker ceases ? 
Begone, dull figments, be done ! not alone shall you dare to remain. 

Without me you yourselves must fall ; 

I hold the measure of you all. 



66 



IN VOLHYNIA — THE LIVING PAST. 



IN VOLHYNIA. 

In Volhynia the peasant mothers, 
When spring-time brings back the 
leaves, 

And the first swallows dart and twitter 
Under the cottage eaves, — 

Sit mute at their windows, and listen, 
With eyes brimming over with tears, 

To the broken sounds which are wafted 
To their eager watching ears. 

And throw out bread and honey 
To the birds as they scintillate by ; 

And hearts full of yearning and longing, 
Borne out on the wings of a sigh. 

For they think that their dear lost 
children. 
The little ones who are gone, 
Come back thus to the heartsick 
mothers 
Who are toiling and sorrowing on. 

And those sun -lit wings and flashing 
White breasts, to their tear-dimmed 
eyes 

Bring visions of white child-angels 
Floating in Paradise. 

And again to the sounds they hearken, 
Which grew silent while incomplete, 

The music of childish laughter, 
The patter of baby feet. 

Till the hearts which are barren and 
childless, 
The homes which are empty and 
cold : 
The nests whence the young have de- 
parted. 
Are filled with young life as of old. 



Thus each spring, to those peasant 
mothers, 
Comes the old Past again and again ; 
And those sad hearts quicken and 
blossom. 
In a rapture of sorrowless pain. 



THE LIVING PAST. ' 

O FAITHFUL souls that watch and 
yearn. 

Expectant of the coming light, 
With kindling hearts and eyes that burn 

With hope to see the rule of right ; 

The time of peace and of good will, 
When the thick clouds of wrong and 
pain 

Roll up as from a shining hill. 
And never more descend again ; 

The perfect day, the golden year. 
The end of sorrow and of sighs ; 

Whether the heavenly change be here. 
Or far beyond the sunset skies, — 

I cherish you, I love your faith, 
I long with you that this may be ; 

But hark, a dreary voice which saith, 
"Vain dreamer, what were it to thee!" 

For though the blest hour strike before 
Another sunrise vex the earth, 

And pain and evil rule no more, 
But vanish in the newer birth, — 

Though war and hatred come to cease, 
And sorrow be no more, nor sin. 

And in their stead an endless peace 
Its fair unbroken reign begin, — 

What comfort have ye? What shall blot 
The memories of bitter years, 



CHANGES— A L ONE. 



67 



Of joys which have been, but are not, 
And floods of unforgotten tears ? 

The painful records graven clear 
On carven rock or deathless page ; 

The long unceasing reign of fear, 
The weary tale of lust and rage ; 

The ills whose dark sum baffles thought, 

Done day by day beneath the sun ? 
"That which is done," the old sage 
taught, 
"Not God Himself can make un- 
done.'^ 

For that which has been, still must live, 
And 'neath the shallow Present last. 

Oh, who will sweet oblivion give, 
Who free us from the dreadful Past ? 



CHANGES. 

You see that tall house opposite? 
Three times within the fleeting year, 
Since last the summer-time was here. 

Great changes have gone over it. 

For first a bridal bright and gay 

Filled the long street with riotous 

sound ; 
And amid smiles from all around. 

The newly-wedded passed away. 

And when the violets came once more, 
And Iambs were born, a concourse 

went, 
Still gayer, still more innocent. 

To christening from that stately door. 

And now the mute house dull and drear. 
From blinded eyes, stares blank and 

white ; 
And amid dust and glaring light. 

The black lines slowly disappear. 



ALONE. 

What shall it profit a man 

To have stood by the source of things, 

To have spent the fair years of his 

youthful prim€ 
In mystical questionings ; 
To have scaled the lovely height, 
While his brothers slept below ; 
To have seen the vision bright 
Which but few on earth may knaw, — 
If when his task be done 
He lives his life alone ? 
If in the busy street 
None come whom he may greet ? 
If in his lonely room 
With the night the shadows deepen into 

ghostly shapes of gloom ? 



It may be his soul may say, 

" I have gained me a splendid dower ; 

I can look around on the toiling 

crowd. 
With the pride of a conscious power. 
I can hear the passer-by 
Tell of all my world-wide fame ; 
I have friends I shall not see 
Who dwell fondly on my name. 
If the sweet smile of wife 
Light not my joyless life. 
If to my silent home 
No childish laughter come, 
Shall I no solace find 
In communion with the monarchs of the 

fair broad realm of mind ? " 



But when sickness wears him, or age 
Creeps on, and his soul doth yearn 
For the tender hand and the soothing 
voice 



68 



SEA VOICES. 



That shall never more return 
When the lessening throng of friends, 
Not unkind, but each one set 
Safe within white walls of home, 
All the world without forget, — 
Shall not old memories rise 
'Twixt book and weary eyes, 
Till knowledge come to seem 
A profitless vague dream ? 
Shall not he sometimes sigh 
For the careless past unlearned, and 
the happy days gone by ? 

Ah ! not to be happy alone. 
Are men sent, or to be glad. 
Oft-times the sweetest music is made 
By the voices of the sad. 
The thinker oft is bent 
By a too-great load of thought ; 
The discoverer's soul grows sick 
With the secret vainly sought : 
Lonely may be the home. 
No breath of fame may come, 
Yet through their lives doth shine 
A purple light Divine, 
And a nobler pain they prove 
Than the bloom of lower pleasures, or 
the fleeting spell of love. 



SEA VOICES. 

Peace, moaning Sea ; what tale have 

you to tell ? 
What mystic tidings, all unknown 

before ? 
Whether you break in thunder on 

the shore. 
Or whisper like the voice within the 

shell, 
O moaning Sea, I know your burden 

well. 



'Tis but the old dull tale, filled full of 
pain ; 
The finger on tne dial-plate of time, 
Advancing slow with pitiless beat 
sublime, 
As stoops the day upon the fading 

plain ; 
And that has been which may not be 
again. 

The voice of yearning, deep but scarce 
expressed. 
For something which is not, but ma) 

be yet ; 
Too full of sad continuance to forget, 
Too troubled with desires to be at rest. 
Too self-conflicting ever to be blest. 

The voice of hopes and aspirations 

high, 
Swallowed in sand, or shivered on 

the rock ; 
Tumultuous life dashed down wivh 

sudden shock ; 
And passionate protests, narrowed to a 

sigh, 
From hearts too weak to live, — too 

strong to die. 

The voice of old beliefs which long 

have fled. 
Gone with a shriek, and leaving 

naught behind. 
But some vague utterance, cold as 

wintry wind, — 
Some dim remembrance of a ghostly 

dread 
Which lingers s'ill when faith itself is 

dead. 

And, above all, through thund'rous 
wintry roar, 
And summer ripple, this, and this 
alone, 



BERLIN, 1 87 1 — THE BEACON. 



69 



For ever do I make this barren 

moan : — 
No end, there is no end, — on Time's 

dull shore 
I wail, I beat, I thunder, evermore. 



BERLIN, 1871. 

The spring day was all of a flutter 
with flags ; 
The mad chimes were Ideating like 
surf in the air ; 
The beggars had slunk out of sight with 
their rags ; 
And the balconies teemed with the 
rich and the fair. 

And below, on each side, the long 
vistas were set 
In a frame-work of faces, patient and 
white, — 
Wives, mothers, sweethearts, with full 
eyes wet. 
And sick hearts longing to see the 
sight. 

Till at length, when the evening v/as 
waning, there ran 
ijb A stir through the crowd, and far-off, 
like a flame, 
The setting sun burned on the helms 
of the van, 
And with trampling of hoofs the 
proud conquerors came. 

And with every step they advanced, 
you might hear 
Women's voices, half-maddened with 
long-deferred joy : 
"Thank God! he is safe. See, my 
love, we are here ! 
See ! here am I, darling ; and this 
is our boy ! " 



Or, "Here am I, dearest, still faithful 
and true ; 
Your own love as of old!" Or an 
agonised cry, 
As the loved face came not with the 
comrades she knew 
And the rough soldiers found not a 
word to reply. 

And pitiful hands led her softly away. 
With a loving heart rent and broken 
in twain ; 
And the triumph sweeps onward, in 
gallant array, — 
The life and the hope, the despair 
and the pain. 

Where was it? In Egypt, Assyria, 
Greece, Rome? 
Ages since, or to-day ; in the old 
world, or new ? 
Who shall tell? P^rom all time these 
strange histories come ; 
And to-day, as of old, the same story 
is true. 

And the long line sweeps past, and 
the dull world rolls on 
Though the rapture is dead and the 
sad tears are dry. 
And careless of all, till the progress be 
done, 
Life rides like a conqueror triumph- 
ing by. 



THE BEACON, 

Fair shines the beacon from its lonely 
rock, 
Stable alone amid the unstable 
waves : 



70 



THE BEACOI^. 



In vain the surge leaps with continual 


Careless of praying hands or eyes 


shock, 


that burn, 


In vain around the wintry tempest 


Or aught that sense can feel or mind 


raves, 


discern. 


And ocean thunders in her sounding 




caves. 


Knowing but this, — that the unknown 




is blest. 


For here is life within the gate of death, 


Holding delight of free untrammelled 


Calm light and warmth amid the 


air : 


storm without ; 


Delight of toil sweeter than any rest, 


Here sleeping love breathes with un- 


Fierce storms with cores of calm for 


troubled breath. 


those who dare 


And faith, clear-eyed, pierces the 


Black rayless nights than fairest 


clouds of doubt 


noons more fair. 


And monstrous depths which com- 




pass her about. 


And drifting forth at eve in some frail 




boat. 


So calm, so pure, yet prisoned and 


Beholds the old light, like a setting 


confined ; 


star, 


Fenced by white walls from pleasure 


Sink in the sea, and still doth fare and 


as from pain. 


float 


Not always glooms the sea or shrieks 


Adown the night till day-break shows 


the wind : 


afar, — 


Sometimes light zephyrs curl the 


And hark the faint low thunders of 


azure main. 


the bar. 


And the sweet sea-nymphs glide 




with all their train. 


Nor if indeed he reach the Blessed Isle, 




Nor if those pitiless crests shall 


Or Aphrodite rises from the foam, 


plunge him down, 


And lies all rosy on the golden sand, 


Knows he ; but v/hether breathless 


And o'er the purple plains the Nereids 


azure smile. 


roam ; 


Or furious night and horrible tem- 


Sweet laughter comes, borne from 


pests frown, 


the joyous band. 


Living or dying. Freedom wears a 


And faint sweet odours from the 


crown. 


far-off land. 




And straightway the impatient soul 


THE GARDEN OF REGRET. 


within 




Loathes its white house which to a 


Beyond the dim walls of the shadowy 


jail doth turn ; 


Past, 


Careless of true or false, of right or 


A sweet vague host of fancies 


sin. 


flourishes, 



THE GARDEN OF REGRET. 



^,\ 



Like garden seeds in some rough 

hollow cast, 
Which all unasked the kind earth 

nourishes, 
And sends up tender blooms more 

sweet and fair 
Than the dull Present rears with all its 

care. 



Tiiere on its thin stem hangs the frail 

white flower; 
Far sweeter now she shines within 

the shade. 
Than when of old within the trim-kept 

bower 
And perfumed lush parterres her 

home she made ; 
Because her sister blooms are past and 

gone. 
And this alone it is that lingers on. 

The same white flower, — but oh, the 
depths of change ! 
Before, the creamy petals, broad and 
strong. 

Were all adust with gold, and filled 
with strange 
Sweet scents, which lurked the 
odorous depths among ; 

Deep in her honeyed wells, the bee 
would stay 

Content, and birds sing round the live- 
long day. 

The same white flower — yet changed in 
scent and hue. 
Now the fair feeble petals curl and 
shrink ; 
The dead smooth surfaces are veined 
with blue ; 
No honeyed draughts they hold for 
bee to drink, 



Nor busy hum, nor joyous song is 

heard. 
What hath she left to charm or bee or 

bird? 

Only a faint sweet odour lingers yet. 
Dearer than those rich scents of 
former years : 
A fragile fairness, fairer through regret. 
And watered by the dewy fount of 
tears. 
To me that outcast flower is dearer. 

grown. 
Than when in those fair gardens over- 
blown. 

I set her in the garden of my heart. 
And water her from life's sincerest 

spring ; 
And lo ! once more the frail stems 

quicken and start, 
Fair honeyed blooms arise and blithe 

birds sing : 
The old sweet flower in scent and 

gorgeous hue, 
But not the tender grace that once I 

knew, 

Alas ! not in the Present will she 

grow : 
The Present has its own blooms 

sweet and bright ; 
Within its four walls life's fair pleasures 

blow, 
And each gay season brings its own 

delight : 
Far off" in dewy shades the exile sweet 
Grows fair, and paths untrodden by 

living feet. 

There let her stay. I know not if my 
theme 
Be love, or some fair child of heart 
or mind : 



72 



TO AN UNKNOWN POET. 



Young friendships, hopes, beliefs, 
which Hke a dream 
Pass from us leaving some sweet 
ghost behind. 



Leave them behind, they have been ; 

others are. 
And shall be. Lo ! the spring time is 

not far. 



SECOND SERIES (1874) 

TO AN UNKNOWN POET.'' 
Dear friend, who, two long centuries 



Didst tread where since my grandsires 

trod. 
Along thy devious Usk's untroubled 

flow, 
Breathing thy soul to God. 

I seek, I, born in these our later days, 
Using the measure thou didst love. 

With halting tribute of too tardy praise, 
A poet throned above. 

I in the self-same veneral)le halls 

And gray quadrangles made my 
home. 
Which heard, new-built, within their 
recent walls. 
Thy youthful footsteps come. 

A little grayer now and stiller grown. 
The tranquil refuge now, as then. 

Where our dear country glories in her 
own. 
Apart from alien men. 

There, on thy musings broke the painful 
sound 
Of arms ; the long-plumed cavaliers 
Clanged thro' the courts — the low fat 
fields around 
Were filled with strife and tears. 

* Henry Vaughan, the Silurist, died near 
Brecon, 1695. 



Constrained by promptings of thy 
ancient race. 
Thy gown and books thou flungst 
away, 
To meet the sturdy Roundhead face to 
face 
On many a hard -fought day, 

Till thy soft soul grew sick, and thou 
didst turn 
To our old hills ; and there, ere 
long, 
Love for thy Amoret, at tunes, would 
burn 
In some too fervid song. 

But soon thy wilder pulses stayed, and, 
life 
Grown equable, thy sweet muse mild, 
Sobered by tranquil love of child and 
wife, 
Flowed pure and undefiled. 

A humble healer thro' a life obscure, 
Thou didst expend thy homely days ; 

Sweet Swan of Usk ! few know how 
clear and pure 
Are thy unheeded lays. 

One poet shall become a household 
name 
Into the nation's heart ingrown ; 
One more than equal miss the meed of 
fame, 
And live and die unknown. 



COMFORT. 



n 



So thou, surviving in thy lonely age, 
All but thy own undying love 

Didst pour upon the sympathetic page, 
Words which all hearts can move — 

So quaintly fashioned as to add a grace 
To the sweet fancies which they bear, 

Even as a bronze delved from some 
ancient place 
For very rust shows fair, 

"They all are gone into the world of 
light ! " 
It is thy widowed muse that sings. 
And then mounts upward from our 
dazzled sight 
On heavenward soaring wings. 

"He that hath found some fledged 
bird's nest may know " 
** At first sight if the bird be flown ; " 
" But what fair dell or grove he sings in 
now," 
*' That is to him unknown." 

" And yet, as angels in some brighter 
dreams " 
" Call to the soul when man doth 
sleep," 
*' So some strange thoughts transcend 
our wonted themes," 
" And into glory peep." 

" O father of eternal life and all 

" Created glories under Thee ! " 
" Resume Thy Spirit from this world of 
thrall " 
" Into true liberty." 

* » * ♦ 

Thou hast rejoined thy dear ones now, 
and art, 
Dear soul, as then thou wouldst be, 
free. 



I, still a prisoner, strive to do my part 
In memory of thee. 

Thou art so high, and yet unknown : 
shall I 
Repine that I too am obscure ? 
Nay, what care I, though all my verse 
shall die. 
If only it is pure ? 

So some new singer of the days to be, 
Reading this page with soft young 
eyes. 
Shall note the tribute which I pay to 
thee 
With youth's sweet frank surprise. 

And musing in himself, perchance shall 
say, 
" Two bards whom centuries part are 
here — 
One whose high fame and name defy 
decay. 
And one who held him dear." 



COMFORT. 

Tho' love be bought and honour sold, 
The sunset keeps its glow of gold. 
And round the rosy summits cold 
The white clouds hover, fold on fold. 

Tho' over-ripe the nations rot, 
Tho' right be dead and faith forgot, 
Tho' one dull cloud the heavens may 

blot, 
The tender leaf delayeth not. 

Tho' all the world He sunk in ill. 
The bounteous autumns mellow still, 
By virgin sand and sea-worn hill 
The constant waters ebb and fill. 



74 



SONG— OH, SNOWS SO PURE! 



From out the throng and stress of lies, 
From out the painful noise of sighs, 
One voice of comfort seems to rise : 
" It is the meaner part that dies." 



SONG. 

If ever, dear, 
I might at last the barren victory gain, 
After long struggle and laborious pain, 

And many a secret tear, 
To think, since think I must of thee, 
Not otherwise than thou of me. 

Haply I might 
Thy chilling coldness, thy disdain, ihy 

pride, 
Which draw me, half reluctant, to ihy 
side, 
With a like meed requite, 
And I my too fond self despise, 
Seeing with disenchanted eyes. 

But now, alas ! 
So fast a prisoner am I to my love, 
No power there is that can my chains 
remove, 

So sweet the caged hours pass, 
That, if it parted me from thee, 
I would not willingly grow free. 

Nor would I dare 
To ask for recompense of love again. 
Who love thee for the height of thy 
disdain. 

Thou wouldst not show so fair 
If we should own an equal flame, 
Unequal souls, in love the same. 

Full well I know 
That what I worship is not wholly thee, 
But a fair dream, a pious fantasy. 

Such as at times doth grow 



On yearnings of the cloistered mind, 
Or the rapt vision of the blind. 

Scorn me then, sweet, 
I would not thou shouldst leave thy 

lofty place. 
Thy lover should not see thee face to 
face. 
But prostrate at thy feet. 
No recompense, no equal part I seek, 
Only that thou be strong and I be 
weak. 



OH, SNOWS SO PURE! 

Oh, snows so pure ! oh, peaks so high ! 
[ lift to you a hopeless eye. 

I see your icy ramparts drawn 
Between the sleepers and the dawn. 

I see you, when the sun has set. 
Flush with the dying daylight yet. 

I see you, passionless and pure. 
Above the lightnings stand secure ; 

But may not climb, for now the hours 
Are spring's, and earth a maze of 
flowers. 

And now, 'mid summer's dust and heat, 
I stay my steps for childish feet. 

And now, when autumn glows, I fear 
To lose the harvest of the year. 

Now winter frowns, and life runs slow. 
Even on the plains I tread thro' snow. 

While you are veiled, or, dimly seen. 
Only reveal what might have been ; 



THE BEGINNINGS OF FAITH^THE NEW ORDER. 



75 



And where high hope would once aspire 
Broods a vast storm-cloud dealing fire. 

Oh, snows so pure ! oh, peaks so high ! 
I shall not reach you till I die ! 



THE BEGINNINGS OF FAITH. 

All travail of high thought, 
All secrets vainly sought, 
All struggles for right, heroic, perpe- 
tually fought. 

Faint gleams of purer fire, 
Conquests of gross desire, 
Whereby the fettered soul ascends con- 
tinually higher. 

Sweet cares for love or friend 
Which ever heavenward tend. 
Too deep and true and tender to have 
on earth their end. 

Vile hearts malign and fell, 
Lives which no tongue may tell, 
So dark and dread and shameful that 
they breathe a present hell. 

White mountain, deep-set lake, 
Sea wastes which surge and break. 
Fierce storms which, roarmg from the 
north, the midnight forests shake. 



j Fair morns of summer days, 
I Rich harvest eves that raise 
I The soul and heart o'erburdened to an 
ecstasy of praise. 

Low whispers, vague and f trange. 
Which through our being range. 
Breathing perpetual presage of some 
mighty coming change. 



These in the soul do breed 
Thoughts which, at last, shall lead 
To some clear, firm assurance of a satis- 
fying creed. 

A MEMORY. 

Down dropped the sun upon the sea^ 
The gradual darkness filled the land. 
And 'mid the twilight, silently, 
I felt the pressure of a hand. 

And a low voice : " Have courage, 

friend. 
Be of good cheer, 'tis not for long j 
He conquers who awaits the end. 
And dares to suffer and be strong." 

I have seen many a land since then, 
Known many a joy and many a pain. 
Victor in many a strife of men, 
Vanquished again and yet again. 

The ancient sorrow now is not, 
Since time can heal the keenest smart ; 
Yet the vague memory, scarce forgot. 
Lingers deep down within the heart. 

Still, when the ruddy flame of gold 
Fades into gray on sea and land, 
I hear the low sweet voice of old, 
I feel the pressure of a hand. 

THE NEW ORDER. 

The old lives are dead and gone and 
rotten. 
The old thoughts shall never more 
be thought. 
The old faiths have failed and are 
forgotten, 
The old strifes are done, the fight is 
fought. 



THE NEW ORDER. 



And with a clang and roll, the new 

creation 
Bursts forth 'mid tears and blood and 

tribulation. 

Sweet they were, the old days that are 

ended, 
The golden years, the happy careless 

hours 
Then, like Pagan gods on the asphodel 

extended, 
Dreaming, men wove them fancies 

fair as flowers. 
Love laid near them. Art to cheer them, 

youthful Beauty 
Sitting crowned upon the marble throne 

of Duty. 

All good things were theirs to cherish 

— lives grown finer 
From the heritage of long ancestral 

ease. 
And a nobler port, and temperate mien 

diviner 
Than their labours and their vigils 

leave to these ; 
Gentler voices, smiles more gracious, 

and the fashion 
Of their soft lives tuned to pity and 

compassion. 

Naught men knew of science, now 

grown rigid 
With its teaching of inexpiable sin ; 
Nor the dull pedantic gospel, dead and 

frigid. 
Of a heaven where mind alone may 

enter in. 
Doom awaiting, stern and silent, all 

transgression. 
And no saint with power to make an 

intercession. 



For a Ruler, as men thought they saw 

above them, 
More than earthly rulers, pitiful and 

mild, 
A Father with a stronger love to love 

them 
Than the love an earthly father bears 

his child — 
God above them, and for pleader and 

defender 
Christ's face stooping, like his mother's, 

true and tender. 

But now there seems no place for the 
Creator 
To hold his long unbroken chain of 
law, 

Nor any need for heaven-sent Mediator, 
Nor the Providence our fathers 
thought they saw. 

Only a dull world-system, always tend- 
ing 

To a blind goal, by a blind rule 
unbending. 

And for the courtesy and tender graces, 

The chivalries and charities of old, 
K dull and equal arrogance effaces 
Soft sympathies by hard demands and 
cold ; 
And the giver giveth not, lest any 

blame him. 
And the taker may not take, lest taking 
shame him. 

Be still, oh ye of little faith, repining 
That the purpose of the Eternal will 
is dead. 
The silent stars forget not yet their 
shining. 
Daily the full sun journeys over- | 
head. I 



AT MIDNIGHT. 



77 



How shall mind's realm alone foigeL 

its reason, 
When the sure years roll season after 

season ? 

There shall rise from this confused 
sound of voices 
A firmer faith than that our fathers 
knew, 
A deep religion, which alone rejoices 

In worship of the Infinitely True, 
Not built on rite or portent, but a finer 
And purer reverence for a Lord diviner. 

There shall come from out this noise of 
strife and groaning 
A broader and a juster brotherhood, 
A deep equality of aim, postponing 

All selfish seeking to the general good. 
There shall come a time when each 

shall to another 
Be as Christ would have him — brother 
unto brother. 

There shall come a time when know- 
ledge wide extended. 
Sinks each man's pleasure in the 
general health. 

And all shall hold irrevocably blended 
The individual and the common- 
wealth, 

When man and woman in an equal union 

Shall merge, and marriage be a true 
communion. 

There shall come a time when brother- 
hood shows stronger 
Than the narrow bounds which now 
distract the world ; 
When the cannons roar and trumpets 
blare no longer. 
And the ironclad rusts, and battle 
flags are furled ; 



When the bars of creed and speech and 

race, which sever, 
Shall be fused in one humanity for ever. 

Oh, glorious end ! oh, blessed consum- 
mation ! 
Oh, precious day ! for which we wait 
and yearn. 

Thou shalt come, and knit men nation 
unto nation. 
But not for us, who watch to day 
and burn. 

Thou shalt come, but after what long 
years of trial. 

Weary watchings, baffled longings, dull 
denial ! 



AT MIDNIGHT. 

They were two poor young girls, little 

older than children, 
Who passed through the midnight 

streets of the city 
Singing. 

Poorly clad, morning-eyed, with a 
strange look of shyness. 

Linked arms, and round cheeks, and 
smooth heads bent together. 

Singing. 

Singing, great Heaven ! with their 
fresh childish voices. 

Some low-murmured ditty, half hymn- 
tune, half love-song, 

Singing, 

Always by hushed square, and long 

street deserted. 
As from school by the old village street 

on fair evenings, 
Singing, 



78 



.YEMESIS. 



vSinging, and knowing it not, the old 

burden 
That is born out of secular wrongs and 

oppressions, 
Singing, 

Of selfish riches, of misery and hun- 
ger, 

Of sin that is bred of the wants of the 
wretched, 

Singing, 

Of poor bribes that purchase souls, of 

the endless, 
Perpetual harvest of pain and of evil, 
Singing, 

So, they passed to the flaring sin- 
befouled places. 

And amid the thick throng of the fallen 
I lost them. 

Singing, 

A hymn-tune, a love-song, a prayer 

chanted backward, 
. A witch spell unholy, a sweet suffrage 

saintly 
Singing. 



NEMESIS. 

Who, without fear 
Piercing the inmost deeps of silent 

thought, 
lias won the prize with lonely labour 
sought. 
And many a bitter tear, 
He in his breast doth hold 
A rarer thing than gold. 
And a fair treasure greater than in 
words is told. 



For he shall learn, 
Not from another's lore, but his own 

soul, 
Whither life's hidden ocean currents 
roll, 
And with sure helm shall turn 
Into a haven fair, 
Where, on the breathless air. 
Nor wave nor storm shall break, but 
peace is everywhere. 

There, in light boat 
Laid on the soft breast of the summer 

sea, 
Lapt day by day in great tranquillity, 
He carelessly shall float. 
He scarce shall see or hear 
A sight or sound of fear, 
Only a low-voiced siren always gliding 
near 



Without the bar 
The enormous surges leap from sea to 

sky. 
Upon the ghostly inland summits 
high 
The avalanche thunders far. 
On the dull plains below, 
In long successions slow 
The toiling generations sow, and reap, 
and sow. 

Dream-like, he sees 
The lurid smoke blot the beleaguered 

town. 
Or the great earthquake shake the city 
down ; 
Labours and miseries ; 
Fire takes them — famine, flood, 
And fever's hideous brood. 
By night the black skies redden with a 
glare like blood. 



TO A CHILD OF FANCY— SONG. 



79 



For him, meanwhile. 
Laid in the shelter of his silken sail. 
The' wind and storm on sea and land 
prevail, 
The enchanted waters smile. 
Always in that calm deep, 
Wherein life's currents sleep, 
He sees high heaven reflected, tho' all 
men may weep. 

Yet now and then 
Between the stars and him, deep, sunk 

below, 
He starts to see a strange dead sem- 
blance grow, 
Gone from the eyes of men. 
Some thin and pale-eyed ghost. 
By marred reflections crost, 
Of thoughts, and faiths, and yearnings 
long since lost. 

And if these fade 
Betimes, he slowly gains to peace 

again ; 
But if too long they tarry, such a pain 
Those clear depths doth invade, 
That for sheer terror he, 
And utter misery, 
Flies to the storm- wrapt hills and 
hungry calling sea. 



TO A CHILD OF FANCY, 

My little dove, my little lamb, 
In whom again a child I am ; 
My innocent, on whose fair head 
The glories of the unknown are shed 

Who thro' the laughing summer day 
Spend est the rosy hours in play. 
Too much by joyous life possest 
To give a willing thought to rest ; 



Who, with the earliest shades of night, 
White-robed, in happy slumbers light, 
Recallest in thy stainless calm 
An angel resting from its psalm ; 



power 



Whence art thou come ? What 

could teach 
The secret of thy broken speech ? 
What agile limb, what stalwart arm, 
Like thy sweet feebleness can charm ? 

With what a rapture of surprise 
This fair world meets thy steadfast eyes, 
As if they saw reflected there 
Faint images of scenes more fair. 

Leaving another heaven behind, 
A heaven on earth thou cam'st to find ; 
This world, so full of misery, 
Opens celestial gates for thee. 

Oh ! if thou mightst not e'er grow wise 
With the sad learning born of sighs ; 
If those soft eyes might never here 
Grow dim for any bitter tear. 

Vain thought, — no creature born of 

earth 
Blooms best 'neath cloudless skies of 

mirth ; 
Only soft rains and clouds can dress 
Life's tree with flowers of blessedness 

Whate'er the lot thy fate shall give, 
At least, while life is mine to live. 
Thou shalt not lack a share of love. 
My little lamb, my little dove ! 



SONG. 

It was not that thy eyes 
Were blue as autumn skies, 
It was not that thy hair 
Was as an angel's fair. 



8o 



THE ORG AN- BOY. 



No excellence of form could move 


They were stern cold rulers. 


A finer soul to so much love. 


Those Romans of old, 




Scorning art and letters 


Nor that in thee I sought 


For conquest and gold ; 


For precious gems of thought, 


Yet leavening mankind, 
In mind and in tongue, 
With the laws that they made 


Nor ever hoped to find 


Hid treasure in thy mind. 

Gray v^^isdom comes with time and age, 


And the songs that they sung : 


Sitting rose-crowned. 


And thine was an unwritten page. 




With pleasure- choked breath. 




As the nude young limbs crimsoned, 


But that I seemed in thee 


Then stiffened in death ; 


My other self to see. 


Piling up monuments 


Yet purer and more high 


Greater than praise. 


Than meets my inner eye, 


Thoughts and deeds that shall live 


Like that enamoured boy who, gazing 


To the latest of days : 


down, 


Adding province to province, 


His lower self would in his higher 


And sea to sea. 


drown. 


Till the idol fell down 




And the world rose up free. 


THE ORGAN-BOY, 


And this is the outcome. 




This vagabond child 


Great brown eyes. 


With that statue-like face 


Thick plumes of hair, 


And eyes soft and mild, 


Old corduroys 


This creature so humble, 


The worse for wear ; 


So gay, yet so meek. 


A buttoned jacket. 


Whose sole strength is only 


And peeping out 


The strength of ihe weak ; 


An ape's grave poll, 


Of those long cruel ages 


Or a guinea pig's snout ; 


Of lust and of guile. 


A sun-kissed face, 


Naught left us to-day 


And a dimpled mouth. 


But an innocent smile. 


With the white flashing teeth 


For the laboured appeal 


And soft smile of the south ; 


Of the orator's art, 


A young back bent, 


A few childish accents 


Not with age or care, 


That reach to the heart. 


But the load of poor music 


For those stern legions speeding 


'Tis fated to bear : 


O'er sea and o'er land, 


But a commonplace picture 


But a pitiful glance 


To commonplace eyes. 


And a suppliant hand. 


Yet full of a charm 


I could moralize still ; 


Which the thinker will prize. 


But the organ begins, 



7 HE ORG AN- BOY. 



8i 



And the tired ape swings downward 


I turn v^'ith grave thought 


And capers and grins : 


To this child of the ages, 




And to all that is WTit 


And away flies romance. 


In Time's hidden pages. 


And yet, time after time, 


Shall young Howards or Guelph.s, 


As I dwell on days spent 


In the days that shall come, 


In a sunnier clime. 


Wander forth seeking bread 


Of blue lakes deep set 


Far from England and home ? 


In the olive-clad mountains, 




Of gleaming white palaces 


Shall they sail to new continents, 


Girt with cool fountains. 


English no more. 


Of minsters where every 


Or turn — strange reverse — 


Carved stone is a treasure. 


To the old classic shore ? 


Of sweet music hovering 


Shall fair locks and blue eyes, 


'Twixt pain and 'twixt pleasure ; 


And the rose on the cheek, 


Of chambers enriched, 


Find a language of pity 


On all sides, overhead. 


The tongue cannot speak — 


With the deathless creations 


" Not English, but angels ? " 


Of hands that are dead ; 


Shall this tale be told 


Of still cloisters holy, 


Of Romans to be 


And twilight arcade, 


As of Romans of old ? 


Where the lovers still saunter 


Shall they too have monkeys 


Thro' chequers of shade ; 


And music ? Will any 


Of tomb and of temple, 


Try their luck with an engine 


Arena and column, 


Or toy spinning-jenny ? 


'Mid to-day's garish splendours, 




Sombre and solemn ; 


Shall we too be led 


Of the marvellous town 


By that mirage of Art 


With the salt-flowing street, 


Which saps the true strength 


Where colour burns deepest, 


Of the national heart ? 


And music most sweet ; 


The sensuous glamour. 


Of her the great mother, 


The dreamland of grace, 


Who centuries sate 


Which rot the strong manhood 


'Neath a black shadow blotting 


They fail to replace ; 


The days she was great ; 


Which at once are the glory. 


Who was plunged in such shame — 


The ruin, the shame, 


She, our source and 'our home — 


Of the beautiful lands 


That a foul spectre only 


And ripe souls whence they came ? 


Was left us of Rome ; 




She who, seeming to sleep 


Oh, my England ! oh. Mother 


Thro' all ages to be, 


Of Freemen ! oh, sweet, 


Was the priests', is mankind's. 


Sad toiler majestic. 


Was a slave, and is free ! 


With labour- worn feet ! 



82 



PROCESSIONS. 



Brave worker, girt round, 


See the poor children swarm 


Inexpugnable, free, 


From dark court and dull street. 


With tumultuous sound 


As the gay music quickens 


And salt spume of the sea. 


The lightsome young feet. 


Fenced off from the clamour 


See them now whirl away, 


Of alien mankind 


Now insidiously come, 


By the surf on the rock, 


With a coy grace which conquers 


And the shriek of the wind, 


The squalor of home. 


Tho' the hot Gaul shall envy, 


See the pallid cheeks flushing 


The cold German flout thee, 


With innocent pleasure 


Thy far children scorn thee. 


At the hurry and haste 


Still thou shalt be great. 


Of the quick-footed measure. 


Still march on uncaring, 


See the dull eyes now bright, 


Thy perils unsharing. 


And now happily dim, 


Alone, and yet daring 


For some soft-dying cadence 


Thy infinite fate. 


Of love-song or hymn. 


Yet ever remembering 


Dear souls, little joy 


The precepts of gold. 


Of their young lives have they, 


That were written in part 


So thro' hymn-tune and song-tune 


For the great ones of old — 


Play on, my child, play. 


" Let other hands fashion 




The marvels of art ; 


For tho' dull pedants chatter 


To thee fate has given 


Of musical taste. 


A loftier part. 


Talk of hindered researches. 


To rule the wide peoples ; 


And hours run to waste ; 


To bind them to thee " 


Tho' they tell us of thoughts 


By the sole bond of loving. 


To ennoble mankind 


That bindeth the free. 


Which your poor measures chase 


To hold thy own place, 


From the labouring mind ; 


Neither lawless nor slave ; 


While your music rejoices 


Not driven by the despot. 


One joyless young heart. 


Nor tricked by the knave. 


Perish bookworms and books. 




Perish learning and art — 




Of my vagabond fancies 


But these thoughts are too solemn, 


I'll e'en take my fill. 


So play, my child, play, 


"Qualche cosa, signor?" 


Never heeding the connoisseur 


Yes, my child, that I will. 


Over the way. 




The last dances of course ; 




Then, with scant pause betvveen. 


PROCESSIONS. 


"Home, Sweet Home," the "Old 




Hundredth," 


To and fro, to and fro. 


And "God Save the Queen." 


The long, long processions go, 



FOR LIFE. 



83 



P'ainter now and now more bright, 
Now in shadow, now in light ; 
Gay and sad, and gay again, 
Mixed of pleasure, mixed of pain. 
Bridal song and burial dirge, 
Rippling blue and leaden surge ; 
Sunlit plain and storm-wrapt hill, 
Saintly lives or stained with ill ; 
Youth and fire and frolic mirth, 
Cold age bending back to earth ; 
Hope and faith and high endeavour. 
Dead lives slowly waning ever ; 
Gleams of varying sun and shade, 
Buds that burst, and flowers that fade ; 
Lives that spring, and lives that fall, 
And a Hidden Will o'er all. 



FOR LIFE. 

Shut in by self, as by a brazen wall. 
In a dry, windless court alone. 
Where no refreshing dews of eve may 

fall, 
Nor morning sun has shone. 

But ever broader, ever higher, higher. 

And ever yearly stronger grown, 

In long circuitous folds high towers 

aspire 
Around her central throne. 

And every year adds some fair outer- 
court, 

Green, lit with fountains, tended well, 

Some dainty pleasaunce fit for joy and 
sport, 

But not wherein to dwell. 

Or some high palace spired with fretted 

gold. 
And tricked with gems of thought and 

art; 



In blank perspective ranks its chambers 

cold. 
Too fair to touch the heart. 

For far within the inmost coil of towers, 
Wrapt round with shadows like a cloak. 
Where on the twilight hush of slow- 
paced hours 
Full utterance never broke ; 

Neither of laughter nor the painful 

sound 
Of great thoughts come to sudden birth, 
Nor murmurs from the Sea that frets 

around 
The dull laborious earth ; 

Nor voice of love or child, nor note of 
glee, 

Nor sigh, nor any weal nor woe — 

Naught but a chill, at times, as hope- 
lessly 

The slow years come and go ; 

She broods immured, a devil or a saint, 
Shut fast within a lonely cell, 
Peopled with beatific visions faint, 
Or ghostly shapes of hell. 

And every year she hears from some 

high gate 
That breaks the dizzy circuit of the 

wall, 
By hands invisible, but strong as fate, 
The loud portcullis fall. 

And every year upon her duller ear 
Faint and more faint the outward 

echoes come, 
Fainter the mingled tones of hope and 

fear. 
To this her cloistered ho.v.e. 



84 



IN THE PARK. 



Till, when the weary circuit's done and 

past, 
The last gate clangs, the tall towers 

sway and fall, 
A great voice calls with thunders, and 

at last 
The captive breaks her thrall ! 



IN THE PARK. 

The stock-jobbers' madams dash 
In splendour thro' park and street. 
'Tis a lightning of wheels that flash, 
'Tis a thunder of high-stepping feet. 
Shrink aside, vile churl, for these prin- 
cesses bold — 
These creatures of jewels and ermine 
and gold — 

As they loll by in insolent pride, 
Scarce deigning a glance of the eye, 
They scatter their mud stains far 

and wide 
On the humbler passer-by — 
Some rhymester it may be, whose 

bitter pen 
Shall pay them their mud stains with 
intei-est again. 

And, meanwhile, in some fetid street 
Their spouse and provider sits — 
A swindler fattening on lie and 

cheat. 
Sole fruit of his sordid wits — 
Full fed and bloated, or wan and pale, 
And haunted with fears of an imminent 
gaol. 

When my lady of high degree 
Rolls by with her lackeys ablaze. 
It gladdens my heart, good 

madams, to see 
The disdain of you in her gaze. 



I love her little, but, matched with you, 
I could fall on my knees to a pride so 
true. 

Or when Lais rattles by 

In her vesture of visible shame. 

Poor child, I whisper, and who 

am I 
To call her dead life by its name ? 
Sad tawdry splendours that, one sure 

day. 
Will spread swift pinions and flutter 
away ! 

But with you, vile spawn of deceit. 
What need to be chary of ire? 
Get down, I say, on your useless 

feet, 
And cleanse them with honest mire. 
Down with you, 'tis time, ere your 

coaches be made 
The central block of a new barricade. 

Yet, perhaps, since in this poor life 
Things are double, each against 

each. 
Among you sometimes is the 

mother and wife 
With her darlings to cherish and 

teach. 
The gentle lady, tender and kind, 
With no shadow of evil on heart or 

mind. 

Ah, riddle of things ! ah, great 
Perpetual struggle and war ! 
The good which should be, in- 
separate. 
From the evil things that are — 
IIow shall I, with purblind vision, 

arraign 
The marvellous measures of joy and 
pain? 



LOSS AND GAIN— SONG— THE A TO LOGY. 



8^ 



Roll by then, brave dames, roll by ; 

You are part of a scheme, I trow. 

No more will I look with a covet- 
ous eye 

On your splendours of pomp and 
show ; 
For I see in your gorgeous chariots the 

strife, 
The problem, the wonder, the satire, 
of Hfe. 



LOSS AND GAIN. 

From day to day, from year to year. 
New waves of change assail us here ; 
Each day, each year, prolongs the chain 
Where pleasure alternates with pain. 

New earth-born exhalations rise, 
To hide the heavens from our eyes ; 
New clouds obscure the vision fair, 
Which once was round us everywhere. 

New precious obligations come, 
New sanctities of love and home. 
New tender hopes, new anxious fears, 
And sweet experiences of tears. 

Old tastes are lost, old thoughts grow 

strange, 
Old longings gradually change. 
Old faiths seem no more dear or true, 
Lost in the full light of the new. 

Youth's boundless aspirations fled, 
And every wild ambition dead ; 
Love not a meteor blinding sight, 
]]ut a pure ray of sober light. 

And for the passionate self of old, 
A deep affection, calm, not cold ; 
A pitying love serenely kind, 
A broader trust, a juster mind, 



A faith which occupies the heart, 
Tho' the brain halts to bear its part, 
Which threat and promise fail to move, 
Like the dim consciousness of love. 

Tho' much be taken, much is left, 

Not all forsaken nor bereft ; 

From change on change we come to 

rest, 
And the last moment is the best. 



SONG. 

"Only a woman's hair," 
A fair lock severed and dead ; 
But where is the maiden — where 
That delicate head ? 

Perhaps she is rich and fair. 
Perhaps she is poor and worn. 
And 'twere better that one somewhere 
Had never been born. 

And the careless hand that threw 

That faded tress away — 

Ah ! the false heart that once seemed 

true. 
Ah ! love flung away. 



THE APOLOGY. 

I MAY not scorn, I cannot prize 
Those whose quick-coming fancies ri-e 
Only in quaint disguise — ■ 

Some trick of speech, or mien, or 

dress, 
Some obsolete uncomeliness, 
Some ancient wickedness. 



86 



THE APOLOGY. 



Strange words antique for things not 

strange, 
Like broken tower and mould'ring 

grange, 
Made fair through time and change. 

Legends of knight, and squire, and 

dame, 
With this our common life the same 
In glory and in shame. 

Mean lives and narrow aims which owe 

The glamour and the charm they show 

To that strange *' Long ago ; " 

Nay, meaner, lower than our own. 
Because To-day is wider grown. 
Knows deeper, and is known. 

I doubt if anything there be 
Which best thro' mask of chivalry, 
Reveals myself to me ; 

Myself, its yearnings and desires, 
Its glimpses of supernal fires, 

The something which aspires ; 

Myself, the thing of blot and stam, 
Which fallen, rises, falls again, 
A mystery of pain ; 

Myself, the toiler slow to earn, 
The thinker sowing words that burn. 
The sensuous in turn. 

The vanquished, the disgraced, the 

saint. 
Now free as air, now bound and faint. 
By everyday constraint. 

Or, if too near the present lies 
For common brains and common eyes 
To probe its mysteries. 



If feeble fancy fails to tear 
The outer husk of fact, and bare 
The seed to vital air, 

But too extended, too immense, 
Life's orb a vast circumference 
Stretches for mortal sense ; 

If simpler shows the past, more fair, 
Set in a pure and luminous air. 
Not dimmed by mists of care, 

Seeming to breathe a lighter strain 
Of lutes and lyres where none complain 
With undertones of pain ; — 

If haply there we seem to view 
Ourselves, behind a veil, yet true 
The germ from which we grew ; 

Not less our duty and our pride 
Forbid to leave unsought, untried, 
The glories at our side. 

What ? shall the limner only paint 

Blue hills with adumbrations faint, 

Or misty aureoled saint, 

And scorn to ponder flower or tree, 

Ripe fields, child-faces, summer sea, 

And all fair things that be ; 

Nor care thro' passion's endless play, 
Our living brethren to portray, 
Who fare to doom to-day. 

When the sun's finger deigns to trace 
Each line and feature of man's face. 
Its beauty and disgrace ? 

Or shall the skilled musician dare 
Only to sound some jocund air 
Arcadian, free from care. 



THE APOLOGY. 



87 



Round wliom in strains that scorn 

control 
The mighty diapasons roll, 

That speak from soul to soul ; 


W' hose lives were chequered, but whose 

verse 
The generations still rehearse ; 
Yet never soul grew worse. 


Our mystical modern music deep, 
Not piped by shepherds to their sheep, 
But wrung from souls that weep ; 


What is it that these would ? shall I, 
Born late in time, consent to He 
In the old misery ? 


Where seldom melody is heard. 
Nor simple woodland note of bird, 
So deep a depth is stirred. 


I — who have learnt that flesh is dust, 
What gulfs dissever love from lust, 
The wrongful from the just — 


Such blended harmonies divine 
Across the core of sweetness twine 
As round the grape the vine ? 


Put on again the rags of sense, 
A Pagan without innocence, 
A Christian in offence ? 


Or shall some false cold dream of art 

Corrupt the voice and chill the heart, 

And turn us from our part, 


Perish the thought ! I am to-day 
What God and Time have made me ; 
they 
Have ordered, I obey. 


Blot out the precious lesson won 

From all the ages past and done, 

That bard and seer are one ? 


And day by day the labouring earth 
Whirls on — glad mysteries of birth. 
Sad death throes, sorrow, mirth, 


Dull creed of earthy souls ! who tell 

That, be the song of heaven or hell, 

Who truly sings, sings well, 


Youth's flower just bursting into bloom, 
Wan age, a sun which sets in gloom. 
The cradle, and the tomb ; 


And with the same encomiums greet 
The satyr baring brutish feet. 

And pure child -angels sweet ; 


These are around me— hope and fear, 
Not fables, but alive and near. 

Fresh smile and scarce-dried tear ; 


Whose praise in equal meed can share 
The Mrenad with distempered hair, 
The cold Madonna fair. 


These are around me, these I sing, 
These, these of every thought and thing. 
My verse shall heavenward wing. 


Great singers of the past 1 whose song 
Still streams down earthward pure and 
strong, 
Free from all stain of wrong. 


The sun but seems to kiss the hill. 
And all the vast eternal Will 
Is moving, working, still 



88 



THE APOLOGY. 



God is, Truth lives, and overhead 
Behold a visible glory spread ; 
Only the past is dead. 

Courage ! arise ; if hard it seem 
To sing the present, yet we deem 
'Tis worthier than a dream. 

Awake, arise, for to the bold 
The seeming desert comes to hold 
Blossoms of white and gold. 
* » * * 

Shall I then choose to take my side 
With those who love their thoughts to 
hide 
In vague abstractions wide? 

Whose dim verse struggles to recall 
The hopes, the fears that rise and fall 
Deep in the souls of all. 

Who fitly choose a fitting theme. 
Not things which neither are nor seem, 
No visionary dream, 

But the great psalm of life, the long 
Harmonious confluence of song, 
Thro' all the ages strong, 

But grown to wider scale to-day, 
And sweeping fuller chords than they 
Knew who have passed away. 

A worthy theme for worthy bard 
But all too often blurred and marred 
By intonations hard. 

So that the common eye and ear 
Can dimly see and faintly hear 

What should be bright and clear. 

Who wing the fieiy thought so high, 
An arrow shot into the sky. 
Its failing forces die, 



And all the straining eye discerns 
Is but a spark which feebly burns, 
Then quenched to earth returns. 

Or with a borrowed lyre devote 
Hoarse accent and untuneful throat 
To sound a difficult note, 

By currents of conflicting thought, 
And counter themes which rise unsought, 
And jangling chords distraught. 

Not song, but science, sign not sound, 

Not soaring to high heaven, but bound 

Fast to the common ground. 

Who with a pitiless skill dissect 
What secret sources, vexed and checked. 
Surge upward in effect. 

And trace in endless struggling rhyme 
How hearts forlorn of love and time 
Have rotted into crime. 

Or those who, baffled and opprest 
By life's incessant fierce unrest, 

Where naught that is seems best, 

Assail the tyrant, lash the wrong, 
Till but a wild invective long, 
Is left in lieu of song. 

Most precious all, yet this is sure. 
The song which longest shall endure 
Is simple, sweet, and pure. 

Not psychologic riddles fine, 
Not keen analysis, combine 
In verse we feel divine. 

Nor fierce o'erbalanced rage alone. 
Which mars the rhyme, and dulls the 
tone — 
They may not sing who groan ; 



THE APOLOGY 



89 



But a sweet cadence, wanting much 
Of depth, perhaps, and fire, but such 
As finer souls can touch, 

To finer issues ; such as come 
To him who far afield must roam, 
Thinking old thoughts of home. 

Or who in Sabbath twilights hears 
His children lisp a hymn, and fears 
Lest they should see his tears. 



Wherefore, my soul, if song be thine. 
If any gleam of things divine 
Thro' thee may dimly shine. 

If ever any faintest note 
Of far-off sweetness swell thy throat, 
True echo tho' remote, 

This is my task, to sing To-day, 
Not dead years past and fled away, 
But this alone— To-day. 

Or if I pause a little space 
Striving, across the gulf, to trace 
Some fine, forgotten face— 

Some monarch of the race whose name 
Still lives upon the lips of fame. 
Touched by no stain of shame ; 

Some sweet old love-tale, ever young, 
Which of old time the burning tongue 
Of god -like bard has sung ; 

Some meed of effort nobly won. 
Some more than human task begun, 
Precious though left undone ; 

Some awful story, strong to show 
How passions unrestricted flow 
Into a sea of woe ; 



Not less my powers I strive to bend, 
Not less my song aspires to tend 
To one unchanging end, 

By lofty aspirations, stirred 
Thro' homely music, daily heard, 
Trite phrase and common word, 

Simple, but holding at the core 
Thoughts which strange speech and 
varied lore 
Have hid from men before. 

To lift how little howsoe'er 
The hearts of toilers struggling here, 
In joyless lives and sere. 

To make a little lighter yet 
Their lives by daily ills beset, 
Whom men and laws forget. 

To sing, if sing I must, of love 
As a pure spell, with power to move 
Dull hearts to things above. 

But choosing rather to portray 
The warring tides of thought which 
stray 
Thro' doubting souls to-day. 

Or if at times, with straining eye 
And voice, I dwell on things which lie 
Hidden in Futurity, 

And strive to tell in halting rhyme 
The glorious dawn, the golden prime, 
The victories of Time, 

The race transfigured, wrong redressed, 
None worn with labour, nor oppressed, 
But peace for all and rest, 



90 



SOATG—AS IN A PICTURE— AT AN ALMSHOUSE. 



And knowledge throwing wide the 

shrine 
From whose broad doorways seems to 

shine 
An effluence Divine ; — 

If of these visions fain to dream, 
Not less I hold, whate'er may seem, 
The Present for my theme. 

The vain regret remembering. 
Which lost occasion knows to bring,— 
Afraid, yet bound, to sing. 



SONG. 

Ah ! love is like a tender flower 
Hid in the opening leaves of life, 
Which, when the springtide calls, has 

power 
To scorn the elemental strife — 
So strong, that well it knows to gain 
Fresh sweetness from the wind and rain. 

-So strong, and yet so weak, alas ! 
It waits the wooing of the sun ; 
'Mid frosts and snows the brief hours 

pass, 
And when they melt the spring is done. 
Gay blooms and honeyed fruits may 

come, 
But spring is dead, and birds are dumb. 



AS IN A PICTURE. 

White, on a cliff they stood ; 
Beyond, a cypress wood. 

Three there were — one who wept. 
And one as though he slept ; 



One with wide steadfast eyes 
Fixed in a sad surprise. 

Day, like a dying hymn, 
Grew gradually dim. 

A solitary star 

Gleamed on them from afar. 

Beneath, by sand and cave 
Sobbed the continual wave. 

Long time in reverent thought 
Who these might be I sought. 

Then suddenly I said, 

" Oh, Lord of quick and dead ! " 



AT AN ALMSHOUSE. 

Beneath these shadows holy 
Age rests, or paces slowly. 
And muses, muses always 
On that which once has been, 
Recalling years long ended. 
And vanished visions splendid ; 
The throb, the flush of old days, 
When all the world was green. 

W^hen every hour brought pleasure. 
And every flower a treasure. 
And whispered words were spoken. 
And love was everywhere. 
The swift brief hour of passion. 
And then the old, old fashion. 
The childish accents broken — 
Oh, precious days and fair ! 

The years of self-denial. 

Blissful tho' full of trial. 

The young blooms waxing stronger, 

The older come to fruit. 



A YORKSHIRE RIVER— FOR JUDGMENT. 



The tranquil days of gladness, 


And the waves part as in a dream, 


'J he gradual calm and sadness, 


From broad bow and sunken side ; 


When childhood cheers no longer, 


And 'tis "greed, greed ! " hisses from 


And all the house is mute. 


coal and from steam, 




Foul freightage and turbid tide, 


Gone, but not wholly taken ; 




Left, yet not all forsaken. 


Like the life of a slumb'ring soul 


Again the worn hearts cherish 


Grown dull in content and health, 


The memories of home ; 


Whose dark depths lazily roll, 


Again love-whispers greet them, 


Whose still currents creep by stealth. 


Their children run to meet them, 


Nor sorrow nor yearning comes to 


Blest dreams which never perish 


control 


Until the end be come. 


The monotonous tide of wealth. 




Fair or foul, in life as in death, 


A YORKSHIRE RIVER. 


One blight and corruption o'er all. 




Blow on them, great wind, with thy 


The silent surfaces sleep 


breath, 


With a sullen viscous flow, 


Fall, bhnding water-floods, fall. 


And scarce in the squalid deep 


Till the dead life below awakeneth. 


Swing the dead weeds to and fro, 


And deep unto deep doth call ! 


And no living thing is there to swim or 




creep 




In the sunless gulfs below. 


FOR JUDGMENT. 


And beneath are the ooze and the 


The form was young, the face was 


slime. 


fair. 


Where the corpse lies as it fell. 


Her hands seemed still together tied, 


The hidden secrets- of crime 


'Twas as if Eve was standing there, 


Which no living tongue shall tell. 


With the stern guardian at her side. 


The shameful story of time, 




The old, old burden of hell. 


I mused on all the depths of will. 




Of judgment, knowledge, right, and 


All the grasses upon the bank 


wrong. 


Are bitter with scurf and drift, 


The pleadings crept their course, and 


And the reeds are withered and dank ; 


still 


And sometimes, when the smoke clouds 


I sat in musings sad and long. 


shift. 




You may see the tall shafts in a hideous 


But when they ceased the tale of 


rank 


shame. 


Their sulphurous fumes uplift. 


And the cold voice pronounced her 
name 


From the black blot up the stream 


But one thought held me, that was all, 


The funeral barges glide, 


'Twas thus we did my sister call. 



92 



ODE ON A FAIR SPRING MORNING. 



ODE ON A FAIR SPRING 
MORNING. 

Come, friend, let us forget 

The turmoil of the world a little while, 

For now the soft skies smile, 

With dew the flowers are wet. 

Let us away awhile 

With fierce unrest and carking thoughts 

of care, 
And breathe a little while the jocund 

air. 
And sing the joyous measures sung 
By blither singers, when the world was 

young. 

For still the world is young, for still 
the spring 

Renews itself, and still the lengthening 
hours 

Bring back the month of flowers ; 

The leaves are green to-day as those of 
old. 

For Chaucer and for Shakspeare ; still 
the gold 

Of August gilds the rippling breadths 
* of wheat ; 

Young maids are fair and sweet 

As when they frolicked gay, with flash- 
ing feet, 

Round the old May-pole. All young 
things rejoice. 

No sorrow dulls the blackbird's mellow 
voice, 

Thro' the clear summer dawns or twi- 
lights long. 

With aspect not more dim 

Thro' space the planets swim 

Than of old time o'er the Chaldean 
plain. 

We only, we alone, 

Let jarring discords mar our song. 



And find our music take a lower lone. 
We only with dim eyes 
And laboured vision feebly strain, 
And flout the undying splendours of 
the skies. 

Oh, see how glorious show. 

On this fair morn in May, the clear-cut 

hills, 
The dewy lawns, the hawthorns white, 
Argent on plains of gold, the growing 

light 
Pure as when first on the young earth 
The faint warm sunlight came to birth. 
There is a nameless air 
Of sweet renewal over all which fills 
The earth and sky with life, and every- 
where, 
Before the scarce seen sun begins to 

glow^. 
The birds awake which slumbered all 

night long. 
And with a gush of song. 
First doubting of their strain, then full 

and wide 
Raise their fresh hymns thro' all the 

country side ; 
Already, above the dewy clover, 
The soaring lark begins to hover 
Over his mate's low nest ; 
And soon, from childhood's early rest 
In hall and cottage, to the casement 

rise 
The little ones with their fresh opened 

eyes. 
And gaze on the old Earth, which still 

grows new. 
And see the tranquil heaven's unclouded 

blue, I 

And, since as yet no sight nor sound of ! 

toil 
The fair spread, peaceful picture comes 

to soil, 



ODE ON A FAIR SPRING MORNING. 



93 



Look with their young and steadfast gaze 

Fixed in such artless sweet amaze 

As Adam knew, when first on either 

hand 
He saw the virgin landscapes of the 

morning land. 

Oh, youth, dawn, springtide, triune 

miracle. 
Renewing life in earth, and sky, and 

man, 
By what eternal plan 
Dost thou revive again and yet again ? 
There is no morn that breaks, 
No bud that bursts, no life that comes 

to birth, 
But the rapt fancy takes, 
Far from the duller plains of mind and 

earth. 
Up to the source and origin of things, 
Where, poised on brooding wings, 
It seems to hover o'er the immense 

inane, 
And see the suns, like feeble rings of 

light, 
Orb from the gray, and all the young- 
ling globe 
A coil of vapour circling like a dream, 
Then fixed compact for ever ; the first 

beam 
Strike on the dark and undivided sea. 
And wake the deeps with life. Oh, 

mystery 
That still dost baffle thought, 
Though by all sages sought. 
And yet art daily done 
With each returning sun. 
With every dawn which reddens in the 

skies, 
With every opening of awakened eyes ! 

How shall any dare to hold 
That the fair world growing old, 



Hath spent in vanished time 

The glories of its prime ? 

Beautiful were the days indeed 

Of the Pagan's simple creed. 

When all of life was made for girl and 

boy. 
And all religion was but to enjoy ; 
The fair chivalric dream 
To some may glorious seem. 
When from the sleeping centuries. 
Awakened Europe seemed to rise ; 
It may be that we cannot know. 
In these ripe years, the glory and the 

glow 
Of those young hours of time, and 

careless days. 
Borne down too much by knowledge, 

and opprest. 
To halt a little for the needed rest. 
And yield ourselves awhile to joy and 

praise ; 
Yet every year doth bring 
With each recurrence of the genial hour 
The infancy of spring. 
With store of tender leaf and bursting 

flower. 
And still to every home 
Fresh childish voices come. 
And eyes that opened last in Paradise, 
And with each rosy dawn 
Are night and death withdrawn ; 
Another world rises for other eyes ; 
Again begins the joy, the stress, the 

strife. 
Ancient as time itself, and wide as life. 

We are the ancients of the world 

indeed ; 
No more the simple creed. 
When every hill and stream and grove 
Was filled with shy divinities of love, 
Allures us, serving as our King 
A Lord of grief and suffering. 



94 



ODE ON A FAIR SPRING MORNING. 



Too much our wisdom burdens to 

permit 
The fair, thin visions of the past, to tlit 
From shade to shade, or float from hill 

to hill. 
We are so compassed round by ill. 
That all the music of our lives is 

dumb, 
Amid the turbulent waves of sound 

that rise, 
The discord born of doubts, and tears, 

and sighs, 
Which daily to the listening ear do 

come ; 
Nay, oft, confounded by the incessant 

noise 
Of vast world-engines, grinding law on 

law, 
We lose the godhead that our fathers 

saw, 
And all our higher joys, 
And bear to plod on daily, deaf and 

blind. 
To a dark goal we dare not hope to 

find. 

But grows the world then old ? 
Nay, all things that are born of time 
Spring upwards, and expand from youth 

to prime, 
Ripen from flower to fruit. 
From song-tide till the days are mute, 
Green blade to ear of gold. 
But not the less through the eternal 

round 
The sleep of winter wakes in days of 

spring. 
And not the less the bare and frozen 

ground 
Grows blithe with blooms that burst 

and birds that sing. 
Nature is deathless ; herb and tree, 
Through time that has been and shall be, 



Change not, although the outward 

form 
Seem now the columned palm 
Nourished in zones of calm. 
And now the gnarled oak that defies 

the storm. 
The cedar's thousand summers are no 

moi'e 
To her than are the fleeting petals gay 
Which the young spring, ere March is 

o'er. 
Scarce offered, takes away. 
Eternal are her works. Unchanging she. 
Alike in short-lived flower and ever- 
I changing sea. 

We, too, are deathless ; we, 

Eternal as the Earth, 

We cannot cease to be 

While springtide comes or birth. 

If our being cease to hold 

Reflected lights divine 

On budding lives, with every day they 

shine 
With unabated gold. 
Though lost it may be to our mortal 

sight. 
It cannot be that any perish quite — 
Only the baser part forgets to be. 
And if within the hidden Treasury 
Of the great Ruler we awhile should 

rest, 
To issue with a higher stamp imprest. 
With all our baser alloy purged and 

spent, 
Were we not thus content ? 

Our thoughts too mighty are 

To be within our span of years con- 
fined, 

Too deep and wide and far, 

The hopes, the fears, that crowd the 
labouring mind, 



LOVE TRIUMPHANT. 



95 



The sorrows that oppress, 

The sanctities that bless, 

Are vaster than this petty stage of 

things. 
The soaring fancy mounts on careless 

wings 
Beyond the glimmer of the furthest 

star. 
The nightly watcher who with patient 

eye 
Scans the illumined sky, 
Knows when the outward rushing fire 

shall turn, 
And in far ages hence shall brightly burn 
For eyes to-day undreamt of. The 

clear voice 
From Greece or Israel thro' the cen- 
turies heard 
Still bids us tremble or rejoice. 
Stronger than living look or word ; 
The love of home or race, 
Which doth transfigure us, and seems 

to bring 
On every heaven-lit face 
Some shadow of the gloiy of our King, 
Fades not on earth, nor with our years 

doth end ; 
Nay, even earth's poor physical powers 

transcend 
The narrow bounds of space and time. 
The swift thought by some mystic sym- 
pathy 
Speeding through desert sand, and 

storm-tost sea. 
And shall we hold the range of mind 
Is to our little lives confined ; 
That the pure heart in some blest 

sphere above, 
Loves not which here was set on fire of 

love ; 
The clear eye scans not still, which 

here could scan 
The confines of the Universal plan ; 



The seer nor speaks nor thinks his 

thoughts sublime, 
And all of Homer is a speck of lime ? 

Nay, friend, let us forget 

The conflicts of our doubt a little 

while. 
Again our springs shall smile ; 
We shall not perish yet. 
If God so guide our fate. 
The nobler portions of ourselves shall 

last 
Till all the lower rounds of life be past, 
And we, regenerate. 
We too again shall rise, 
The same and not the same, 
As daily rise upon the orient skies 
New dawns with wheels of flame. 
So, if it worthy prove, 
Our being, self-perfected, shall upward 

move 
To higher essence, and still higher 

grown. 
Not sweeping idle harps before a 

throne, 
Nor spending praise where is no need 

of praise, 
But through unnumbered lives and 

ages come 
From pure laborious days. 
To an eternal home. 
Where spring is not, nor birth, nor any 

dawn. 
But life's full noontide never is with- 
drawn. 



LOVE TRIUMPHANT. 

Love took me up, a naked, helpless 

child, 
Love laid me sleeping on the tender 

breast, 



96 



TOLERANCE— A HYMN IN TIME OF IDOLS. 



Love gazed on me with saintly eyes 

and mild, 
Love w^atched me as I lay in happy rest, 
I/Ove was my childhood's stay, my 

chiefest good, 
My daily friend, my solace, and my 

food. 

But when to Love's own stature I was 

come, 
Treading the paths where fabled Loves 

abound, 
Hard by the Cytherean's magic home, 
Loveless I paced alone the enchanted 

ground. 
Some phantoms pale I marked, which 

fled away, 
And lo, my youth was gone ; my hair 

turned gray. 

Loveless I lived long time, until I 

knew 
A thrill since childish hours unknown 

before, 
My cloistered heart forth to the wicket 

flew, 
And Love himself was waiting at the 

door. 
And now, howe'er the treacherous 

seasons move, 
Love dwells with me again, and I with 

Love. 

Love folds me round. Love walks with 

me. Love takes 
My heart and burns it with a holy fire ; 
Love lays me on his silver wings, and 

makes 
My fainting soul to thinner air aspire. 
Love of the Source, the Race, the 

True, the Right, 
This is my sole companion day and 

night. 



TOLERANCE. 

Call no faith false which e'er has 

brought 
Relief to any laden life. 
Cessation from the pain of thought, 
Refreshment 'mid the dust of strife. 

What though the thing to which they 

kneel 
Be dumb and dead as wood or stone, 
Though all the rapture which they feel 
Be for the worshipper alone ? 

They worship, they adore, they bow 
Before the Ineffable Source, before 
The hidden soul of good ; and thou. 
With all thy wit, what dost thou more ? 

Kneel with them, only if there come 
Some zealot or sleek knave who strives 
To mar the sanctities of home. 
To tear asunder wedded lives ; 

Or who by subtle wile has sought, 
By shameful promise, shameful threat, 
To turn the thinker from his thought, 
To efface the eternal landmarks set, 

'Twixt faith and knowledge ; hold not 

peace 
For such, but like a sudden flame 
Let loose thy scorn on him, nor cease 
Till thou hast covered him with shame. 



A HYMN IN TIME OF IDOLS. 

Though they may crowd 
Rite iipon rile, and mystic song on 
song; 



A HYMN m TIME OF IDOLS. 



97 



Though the deep organ loud 
Through the long nave reverberate full 

and strong ; 
Though the weird priest, 
Whom rolling clouds of incense half 

conceal, 
By gilded robes increased, 
Mutter and sign, and proudly prostrate 

kneel ; 
Not pomp, nor song, nor bended 

knee 
Shall bring them any nearer Thee. 

I would not hold 

Therefore that those who worship still 

where they. 
In dear dead days of old, 
Their distant sires, knelt once and 

passed away, 
May not from carven stone, 
High arching nave and reeded column 

fine. 
And the thin soaring tone 
Of the keen organ catch a breath 

divine, 
Or that the immemorial sense 
Of worship adds not reverence. 

But by some bare 

Hill side or plain, or crowded city 
street, 

Wherever purer spirits are. 

Or hearts with love inflamed together 
meet. 

Rude bench and naked wall. 

Humble and sordid to the world- 
dimmed sight. 

On these shall come to fall 

A golden ray of consecrating light, 

And thou within the midst shalt 
there 

Invisible receive the prayer. 



In every home. 

Wherever there are Icving hearts and 

mild, 
Thou still dost deign to come, 
Clothed with the likeness of a little 

child ; 
Upon the hearth thou still 
Dwellest with them at meat, or work, 

or play ; 
Thou who all space dost fill 
Art with the pure and humble day by 

day; 
Thou treasurest the tears they weep, 
And watchest o'er them Avhile they 

sleep. 



Spirit and Word ! 

That still art hid in every faithful heart. 
Indwelling Thought and Lord — ■ 
How should they doubt who know thee 

as thou art ? . 
How think to bring thee near 
By magic words, or signs, or any spell, 
Who art among us here, 
Who always in the loving soul dost 

dwell. 
Who art the staff and stay indeed 
Of the weak knees and hands that 

bleed ? 



Then let them take 

Their pagan trappings, and their lifeless 

lore ; 
Arise O Lord and make 
A worthy temple where was none 

before. 
Each soul its own best shrine. 
Its priesthood, its sufficient sacrifice, 
Its cleansing fount divine, 
Its hidden store of precious sanctities. • 
Those only fit for priestcraft are 
From whom their Lord and King is far, 
fl 



98 ON A MODERN PAINTED WINDOW— A MIDSUMMER NIGHT. 



ON A MODERN PAINTED 
WINDOW. 

Time was they lifted thee so high 
Between the gazer and the sky, 
That all the worshipper might see 
Was God no more, but only thee. 

So high was set thy cross, that they 
Who would thy every thought obey, 
Saw not thy gracious face, nor heard 
More than an echo of thy word. 

But now 'tis nearer to the ground. 
The weeping women kneel around, 
The scoffers sneering by, deride 
Thy kingly claims, thy wounded side. 

Only two beams of common wood, 
And a meek victim bathed in blood, 
Rude nails that pierce the tortured 

limb, 
Mild eyes with agony grown dim. 

Aye, but to those who know thee right 
Faith strengthens with the nearer sight ; 
Love builds a deeper, stronger, creed 
On those soft eyes and hands that bleed. 

Raised but a little from the rest, 
But higher therefore and more blest ; 
No more an empty priestly sign. 
But the more human, more divine. 



A MIDSUMMER NIGHT. 

The long day wanes, the broad fields 

fade ; the night, 
The sweet June night, is like a curtain 

drawn. 



The dark lanes know no faintest sound, 
and white 

The pallid hawthorn lights the smooth- 
pleached lawn. 

The scented earth drinks from the 
silent skies 

Soft dews, more sweet than softest 
harmonies. 

There is no stir nor breath of air, the 
plains 

Lie slumbering in the close embrace of 
night, 

Only the rustling landrail's note com- 
plains ; 

The children's casement shows the 
half-veiled light, 

Only beneath the solemn elm trees tall 

The fountain seems to fall and cease to 
fall. 

No change will come, nor any sound 
be made 

Thro' the still hours which shall pre- 
cede the day ; 

Only the bright-eyed stars will slowly 
fade. 

And a thin vapour rise up cold and 
g'-ay, 

Then a soft breeze will whisper fresh 
and cold, 

And up the swift sun hurries red as 
gold. 

And then another dawn, another link, 
To bind the coming to the vanished 

day, 
Another foot-pace nearer to the brink 
Whereon our perilous footsteps hardly 

stay, 
Another line upon the secular page 
Of birth-throes, bridals, sick-beds, 

youth and age. 



GOOD IN EVERYTHING — THE REPLY— THE TOUCHSTONE. 



99 



Sweet summer night, than summer 
days more fair, 

Safe haven of the weary and forlorn, 

Splendid the gifts the luminous noon- 
tides bear, 

Lovely the opening eyelids of the 
morn ; 

But thou with softest touch trans- 
figures t 

This toilworu earth into a heaven of 
rest. 



GOOD IN EVERYTHING. 

The white shafts of the dawn dispel 
The night clouds banked across the 

sky; 
The sluggish vapours curl and die, 

And the day rises. It is well. 

Unfold, ye tender blooms of life ; 

Sing, birds ; let all the world be 
gay : 

'Tis well, — the morning of our day 
Must rise 'mid joyous songs and strife. 

Beat, noonday sun, till all the plain 
Swoons, and life seems asleep or 

dead : 
'Tis well, — the harvest of our bread 

Is sown in sorrow and reaped in pain. 

Close, evening shadows, soft and deep, 
When life reviving breathes once 

more ; 
Fall, silent night, when toil is o'er. 

And the soul folds her wings in sleep. 

Come joy or grief, come right or wrong, 
In good or evil, life or death ; 
We are the creatures of His breath : 

Nor shall his hand forsake us long. 



THE REPLY. 

If I were to answer you 

As you would, my soul would soar 

Like the lark from earth-born eyes. 

Soar and hide in far-off skies, 

Soar and come to mortal view 

Nevermore. 

Whatsoever chance befall, 
Of myself I'd die possest. 
If they hold a willing mind 
Silken threads like steel can bind. 
Only to be free is blest — 
Free is all. 

Press me not, of earth am I ; 
Paths there are I dare not tread. 
Sweet are fields and flowers, the smile 
Of girlhood ; but a little while 
Blossoms youth, and overhead 
Laughs the sky. 

What have we to do with love, — 
We for whom the seasons bring 
Nothing else than golden hours. 
Sun that bui-ns, nor cloud that lowers. 
Thro' whose veins the tides of spring 
Lightly move ? 

But if any pain should come 
To o'ercloud your summer, dear, 
Pain another's heart may share. 
Come and we our fate will dare, — 
Come, forgetting doubt and fear, 
To your home. 



THE TOUCHSTONE. 



Said one, " 'Tis Use must lend 
The clue our thoughts to bend 
To the true end." 



THE TOUCHSTONE. 



Then I. " But can your thought 
Reach thus for ages sought, 
The eternal 'Ought?'" 

" Would not the martyr spurn 
The truth you teach, to learn, 
Rot, rather,— burn?" 

" Were not death's self more sweet 
Than to live incomplete 
A life efifete ? " 

Then he. *' But who shall hold 
They grasped not over bold 
Their faith of old," 

" Hoarding a random creed 
For which they bore to bleed. 
Not proved indeed? " 

' ' I'"or who the truth shall seize 
Grasps it by slow degrees, 
Not snatched, as these." 

"And who would save his kind 

Must spend, the clue to find, 
' Not heart, but mind." 

Then I. " But mind alone, 
Is dead as wood or stone, 
Stirs naught and none." 

' ' And who with prying eyes 
Will motive analyze, 
For him it dies." 

" And all his hours remain 
A barren, endless plain, 
Not joy nor pain : " 

*' A tideless, windless sea, 
A blank eternity, 
Still doomed to be." 



Then he. ''The Use we teach 
All forms of being can reach. 
Saves all by each." 

"No hasty glance or blind, 
To passing goods confined. 
Changeful as wind ; " 

" But with a steadfast view, 
Piercing the boundless blue. 
Up to the True." 

" Contented to efface 
Self, if from out its place 
Blossoms the race ; " 

" If from lives crushed and wrecked, 
A perfected effect, 
Man stands erect." 

" To whom all pleasures show 
An aspect mean and low 
Beside to know." 

" Holding all other thought 
Than which for this is sought 
A thing of naugh^." 

"This seeking, nothing les';, 
What broader happiness 
Most lives may bless ? " - 

Then I. " If the desire 

To which your thoughts aspire 

Blazed forth afire ; " 

" If all the task were done. 
All stubborn contests won 
Beneath the sun ; " 

" If hope came not to cheer, 
Nor bracing chill of fear, 
Sweet sigh nor tear ; " 



THE TOUCHSTONE. 



lol 



" But all the race should sleep 
In a broad calm, too deep 
For one to weep." 

*'And o'er all lands should reign 
A dull content inane, 
Worse far than pain ; " 

"If, all its griefs forgot, 
Slowly the race should rot. 
Fade and be not ; " 

*' Would not the thought oppress 
The dream that once could bless, 
With such distress," 

" That, from the too great strain, 
Life withered, heart and brain, 
Would rise in vain ? " 

Then he. ' ' The outcome this 

Of all philosophies, 

' Who seeks shall miss.' " 

" Who toil aright, for those 
Life's pathway, ere it close, 
Is as the rose." 

" The spires of wisdom stand. 
Piled by the unconscious hand. 
From grains of sand." 

"And pleasure comes unsought. 
To those who take but thought 
For that, they ought ; " 

"A bloom, a perfume rare, 
A deep-hid jewel fair 
For those who dare." 

* ' So who the race aright 
Loveth, a clearer sight 
Shall yet requite ; " 



" And, since he seeks it less, 
An unsought happiness 
His toil shall bless." 

Then I. *' 'Twere strange indeed 
Should not our longing need 
A clearer creed." 

" If only this were blest, 
To ponder well how best 
To serve the rest." 

" Since grows ; 'tis understood, 
The happy multitude, 
From each man's good," 

' ' From general sacrifice. 
How should for each arise, 
Content for sighs ? " 

" Or shall we deem it true 
That who the road pursue 
To gain the True," 

" May not the summit gain 
By paths direct and plain 
To heart and brain," 

" But with averted mind, 
And sedulously blind, 
The end must find ? " 

" Is truth a masker, then. 
Rejoiced to mock the ken 
Of toiling men? " 

" Now tricked as Use, now Right, 
Bat always in despite 
Of our poor sight." 

" Doth it not rather seem 
We live, whate'er we deem, 
As in a dream," 



lo: 



NOTHING LOST. 



*' Acting, but acting still 
The dictates to fulfil 
Ofa sure Will," 

" Seeing in Use and Right, 
Twin rays indefinite 
Ofa great Light," 

*' A mystic Sun and clear. 
Which through mind's atmosphere 
Can scarce appear," 

"But which not less we know ; 
In all fair flowers that grow, 
Loud storms that blow," 

*' In noble thought and word, 
In aspirations heard. 
When hearts are stirred," 

" In eveiy breathing breath, 
Life that awakeneth, 
Life that is death," 

" Whether serene it shine 
Or clouds our view confine. 
Wondrous, Divine ? " 

Then he. *' Shall this excuse 
Him who a dream should choose 
Rather than Use," 

*' That he prefer to hold 
Some dark abstraction old. 
Remote and cold," 

" Some thin ghost, fancy-dressed, 
Whereby men's souls oppressed. 
Forfeit the best," 

" And for a dream neglect 
What splendours of effect 
Their lives had decked ? " 



Then I. "Though mind and brain 
Wither and are in vain. 
And thought a pain ; " 

■ Though sorrow, like a thief, 
Follow to rob belief, 
And faith be grief; " 

' Though my obedience sliow 
No fruit I here may know 
Save utter woe ; " 

' Though health and strength decay ; 
Yea, though the Truth shall slay, 
I will obey." 



NOTHING LOST. 

Where are last year's snows, 
Where the summer's rose, — 
Who is there who knows? 

Or the glorious note ■ 
Of some singer's throat, 
Heard in years remote ? 

Or the love they bore 
Who, in days of yore. 
Loved, but are no more ? 

Or the faiths men knew 
When, before mind grew, 
All strange things seemed true ? 
* * * i 

The snows are sweet spring rain, 
The dead rose blooms again, 
Young voices keep the strain. 

The old affection mild 

Still springs up undefiled 

For love, and friend, and child. 



THE HIDDEN SELF— MARCHING. 



103 



The old faiths giown more wide, 

Purer and glorified, 

Are still our lifelong guide. 

Nothing that once has been, 
Tho' ages roll between 
And it be no more seen, 

Can perish, for the Will 
Which doth our being fulfil, 
Sustains and keeps it still. 



THE HIDDEN SELF. 

I KNOW not if a keener smart 
Can come to finer souls than his 

Who hears men praise him, mind or 
heart, 
For something higher than he is. 



Who 



say. 



Behold mc, 



fain would 
friends, 
That which I am, not what you deem, 
A thing of low and narrow ends, 
Sordid, not golden as I seem. 

See here the hidden blot of shame. 
The weak thought that you take for 
strong, 

The brain too dull to merit fame, 
The faint and imitative song." 

But dares not, lest discovery foul 
Not his name only, but degrade 

Heights closed but to the soaring soul. 
Names w^hich scorn trembles to in- 
vade ; 

And doth his inner self conceal 

From all men in his own despite, 
Hiding what he would fain reveal, 
t And a most innocent hypocrite. 



MARCHING. 

Once, and once again, 
From the thick crowd of men. 
Loud toil and high endeavour, 
There comes a secret sound, 
Where the thinkers stand around, 
And sometimes 'tis "For ever," 
Sometimes "Never." 

Always that ceaseless throng 
Has filed those paths along. 
Those painful hills ascended ; 
Thro' fair meads of success, 
Thro' barren sands they press. 
Defeats and triumphs splendid, 
Till 'tis ended. 

The glory and the shame 
Different, and yet the same 
The efforts and the aspirations, 
Unlike in mien and speech, 
Pressed onwards each on each. 
Go the endless alternations 
Of the nations. 

And the rhythm of their feet. 

The ineffable low beat 

Of those vast throngs pacing slowly. 

Floats on the sea of Time 

Like a musical low chime 

From a far isle, mystic, holy, 

Tolling slowly. 

And from the endless column 
Goes up that strange rhyme solemn 
Of thoughts which naught shall sever, 
The contrast sad and sweet, 
Of opposite streams which meet ; 
Sometimes the glad " For ever," 
Sometimes "Never." 



[04 COURAGE!— GILBERT BECKETT AND THE FAIR SARACEN. 



COURAGE! 

There are who, bending supple knees, 
Live for no end except to please, 

Rising to fame by mean degrees ; 
But creep not thou with these. 

They have their due reward ; they bend 
Their lives to an unworthy end — 

On empty aims the toil expend 
Which had secured a friend. 

But be not thou as these, whose mind 
Is to the passing hour confined ; 

Let no ignoble fetters bind 
Thy soul, as free as wind. 

Stand upright, speak thy thought, de- 
clare 
The truth thou hast that all may 
share ; 
Be bold, proclaim it everywhere : 
They only live who dare. 



GILBER T BECKE TT AND THE 
FAIR SARACEN. 

The last crusader's helm had gleamed 

Upon the yellow Syrian shore ; 
No more the war-worn standards 
streamed, 

The stout knights charged and fell 
no more ; 
No more the Paynim grew afraid — 

The crescent floated o'er the cross. 
But to one simple Heathen maid 

Her country's gain was bitter loss ; 

For love, which knows not race or creed, 
Had bound her with its subtle 
chain,— • 



Love, which still makes young hearts 
to bleed. 

For this one, mingled joy with pain, 
And left for one brief hour of bliss. 

One little span of hopes and fears. 
The memory of a partmg kiss. 

And what poor solace comes of tears. 

A lowly English squire was he, 

A prisoner chained, enslaved, and 
sold ; 
A lady she of high degree. 

'Tis an old tale and often told : 
'Twas pity bade the brown cheek glo\^■, 

'Twas love and pity drew the sigh, 
'Twas love that made the soft tear flow, 

The sweet sad night she bade him fly. 

Far from the scorching Syrian plain 

The brave ship bears the Saxon home ; 
Once more to mists and rains again. 

And verdant Englishlawns, they come. 
I know not if as now 'twas then, 

Or if the growing ages move 
The careless, changeful hearts of men 

More slowly to the thoughts of love ; 

But woman's heart was then, as now, 

Tender and passionate and true. 
Think, gentle ladies, ye who know 
Love's power, what pain that poor 
heart knew ; 
How, living always o'er again 

The sweet short past, she knew, loo 
late, 
'Twas love had bound the captive's 
chain, 
Which broken, left her desolate. 

TjU by degrees the full young cheek 
Grew hollow, and the liquid eyes 

Still gazing seaward, large and meek, 
Took something of a sad surprise ; 



GILBERT BECKETT AND THE FAIR SARACEN. 



105 



As one who learns, with a strange chill, 
'Mid youth and wealth's unclouded 
day, 
Of sad lives full of pain and ill, 

And thinks, ' ' And am I too as 
they ? " 

And by degrees most hateful grew 

All things that once she held so 
dear — 
The feathery palms, the cloudless blue, 

Tall mosque and loud muezzin clear, 
The knights who flashed by blinded 
street, 

The lattice lit by laughing eyes, 
The songs around the fountain, sweet 

To maidens under Eastern skies. 

And oft at eve, when young girls told 

Tales precious to the girlish heart, 
She sat alone, and loved to hold 

Communion with her soul apart. 
Till at the last, too great became 

The hidden weight of secret care, 
And girlish fears and maiden shame 

Were gone, and only love was there. 

And so she fled. I see her still 

In fancy, desolate, alone. 
Wander by arid plain and hill, 

From early dawn till day was done ; 
Sun-stricken, hungry, thirsty, faint. 

By perilous paths I see her move, 
Clothed round with pureness like a 
saint. 

And fearless in the might of love. 

Till lo ! a gleam of azure sea, 
And rude ships moored upon the 
shore. 
j Strange, yet not wholly strange, for he 
j Had dared those mystic depths 
i before. 



And some good English seaman bold. 
Remembering those he left at home, 

Put gently back the offered gold. 
And for love's honour bade her come. 

And then they sailed. No pirate bark 
Swooped on them, for the Power of 
Love 
Watched o'er that precious wandering 
ark, 
And this his tender little dove. 
I see those stalwart seamen still 

Gaze wondering on that childish form, 
And shelter her from harm and ill, 
And guide her safe through wave 
and storm. 

Till under grayer skies a gleam 

Of white, and taking land she went. 
Following our broad imperial stream, 

Or rose-hung lanes of smiling Kent. 
Friendless I see her, lonely, weak, 

Thro' fields where every flower was 
strange, 
Go forth without a word to speak, 

By burgh and thorp and moated 
grange. 

For all that Love himself could teach 

This passionate pilgrim to our shore. 
Were but two words of Saxon speech. 

Two little words and nothing more — 
"Gilbert" and "London"; like a 
flame 

To her sweet lips these sounds would 
come. 
The syllables of her lover's name. 

And the far city of his home. 

I see her cool her weary feet 

\\\ dewy depths of crested grass ; 

By clear brooks fringed with meadow- 
sweet, 
And daisied meads, I see her pass ; 



io5 



GILBERT BECKETT AND THE FAIR SARACEN. 



I see her innocent girlish glee, 
'■ I see the doubts which on her crowd, 
O'erjoyed with bird, or flower, or tree. 
Despondent for the fleeting cloud. 

I see her passing slow, alone, 

By burgh and thorp and moated 
grange. 
Still murmuring softly like a moan 

Those two brief words in accents 
strange. 
Sometimes would pass a belted earl 

With squires behind in brave array ; 
Sometimes some honest, toilworn churl 

Would fare with her till close of day. 

The saintly abbess, sweet and sage, 

Would wonder as she ambled by, 
Or white-plumed knight or long-haired 
page 

Ride by her with inquiring eye. 
The friar would cross himself, and say 

His paternosters o'er and o'er ; 
The gay dames whisper Welladay ! 

And pity her and nothing more. 

But tender women, knowing love 

And all the pain of lonelihood, 
Would feel a sweet compassion move. 

And welcome her to rest and food. 
And walk with her beyond the hill. 

And kiss her cheek when she must go ; 
And " Gilbert " she would murmur still, 

And "London" she would whisper 
low. 

And sometimes sottish boors would rise 
From wayside tavern, where they 
sate, 
And leer from heated vinous eyes, 
. And stagger forth with reeling gait, 



And from that strong unswerving will 
And clear gaze shrink as from a 
blow ; 
And " Gilbert " she would murmur still, 
And " London " she would whisper 
low. 

Then by the broad suburban street, 

And city groups that outward stray 
To take the evening, and the sweet 

Faint breathings of the dying day-^ 
The gay young 'prentice, lithe and slim, 

The wimpled maid, demurely shy, 
The merchant somewhat grave and 
prim. 

The courtier with his rolling eye. 

And more and more the growing crowd 
Would gather, wondering whence she 
came 
And why, with boorish laughter loud. 
And jeers which burnt her cheek 
with flame. 
For potent charm to save from ill 

But one word she made answer now : 
For " Gilbert " she would murmur still, 
And "Gilbert" she would whisper 
low. 

Till some good pitiful soul — not then 

Our London was as now o'ergrown— 
Pressed through the idle throng of men, 

And led her to his home alone, 
And signing to her he would find 

Him whom she sought, went forth 
again 
And left her there with heart and mind 

Distracted by a new-born pain. 

For surely then, when doubt was o'er, 
A doubt before a stranger came, 

" He loved me not, or loves no more." 
Oh, virgin pride ! oh, maiden shame I 



TO A CHILD OF FANCY. 



107 



Almost she fled, almost the past 

Seemed better than the pain she 
knew ; 
Her veil around her face she cast : 
Then the gale swung — and he was 
true. 

Poor child ! they christened her, and so 
She had her wish. Ah, yearning 
heart, 
V/ns love so sweet then ? would you 
know 
Again the longing and the smart ? 
Came there no wintry hours when you 
Longed for your native skies again. 
The creed, the tongue your girlhood 
knew. 
Aye, even the longing and the pain ? 

Peace ! Love is Lord of all. But I, 

Seeing her fierce son's mitred tomb, 
Conjoin with fancy's dreaming eye 

This love tale, and that dreadful 
doom. 
Sped hither by a hidden will. 

O'er sea and land I watch her go ; 
'* Gilbert " I hear her murmur still. 

And "London" still she whispers 
low. 



TO A CHILD OF FANCY. 

The nests are in the hedgerows, 
The lambs are on the grass ; 
With laughter sweet as music 
Thy hours lightfooted pass. 
My darling child of fancy. 
My winsome prattling lass. 

Blue eyes, with long brown lashes, 
Thickets of golden curl, 
Red little lips disclosing 
Twin rows of fairy pearl, 



Cheeks like the apple blossom, 
Voice lightsome as the merle. 

A whole Spring's fickle changes 
In every short-lived day, 
A passing cloud of April, 
A flowery smile of May, 
A thousand quick mutations 
From graver moods to gay. 

Far off, I see the season 

When thy childhood's course is run, 

And thy girlhood opens wider 

Beneath the growing sun. 

And the rose begins to redden. 

But the violets are done. 

And further still the summer. 
When thy fair tree, fully grown. 
Shall burgeon, and grow splendid 
With blossoms of its own. 
And the fruit begins to gather. 
But the buttercups are mown. 

If I should see thy autumn, 
'Twill not be close at hand. 
But with a spirit vision. 
From some far distant land. 
Or, perhaps, I hence may see thee 
Amongst the angels stand. 

I know not what of fortune 
The future holds for thee, 
Nor if skies fair or clouded 
Wait thee in days to be, 
But neither joy nor sorrow 
Shall sever thee from me. 

Dear child, whatever changes 
Across our lives may pass, 
I shall see thee still for ever, 
Clearly as in a glass. 
The same sweet child of fancy, 
The same dear winsome lass. 



io8 



A CYNiaS DAY-DREAM. 



A CYNICS DAY-DREAM. 

Some men there be who can descry 
No charm in earth or sea or sky, 
Poor painful bigot souls, to whom 
All sights and sounds recall the tomb, 
And some who do not fear to use 
God's world for tavern or for stews. 
Some think it wisdom to despoil 
Their years for gold and troublous toil ; 
While others with cold dreams of art 
Would feed the hunger of the heart, 
And dilettanti dare to stand, 
Eternities on either hand ! 

But with no one of these shall I 
Make choice to live my life or die, — 
Rather let me elect to give 
W^hat span of life is mine to live, 
To honest labour, daily sought, 
Crowned with the meed of patient 

thought ; 
To precious friends for ages dead, 
But loved where'er their words are 

read ; 
To others living with us still, 
Who sway the nation's mind and will 
By eloquent pen or burning word, 
Where hearts are fired and souls are 

stirred. 
So thro' the tranquil evenings long. 
Let us awake our souls with song. 
Such song as comes where no words 

come. 
And is most mighty when most dumb. 
Then soar awhile on wings of art ; 
Not that which chokes the vulgar mart, 
But subtle hints and fancies fine, 
When least completed most divine, — 
Sun-copies of some perfect thought. 
Thro' bronze or canvas fitly wrought. 
Known when in youth 'twas ours to see 
Thy treasure-houses, Italy ! 



Then turn from these to grave debate 
What change of laws befits the State, 
By what wise schemes and precepts best 
To raise the humble and oppressed, 
And slay the twin reproach of Time, 
The fiends of Ignorance and Crime. 



Or what if I might come to fill 
A calmer part, and dearer still, 
With one attempered soul to share 
The joys and ills 'tis ours to bear ; 
To grow together, heart with heart. 
Into a whole where each is part ; 
To blend together, soul with soul, 
Neither a part, but each the whole ; 
With strange creative thrills to teach 
The dawning mind, the growing speech, 
To bind around me precious bands 
Of loving hearts and childish hands. 
And lose the stains of time and sense 
In those clear deeps of innocence ? 

So if kind fate should grant at length, 
Ere frame and brain have lost their 

strength. 
In my own country homestead dear, 
To spend a portion of the year ; 
What joys I'll prove if modest wealth 
Should come with still unbroken health ! 
There, sheltered from the ruder wind, 
Thro' the thick woods we'll range, to 

find 
The spring's first flower, the autumn's 

fruit, 
Strange fungus or misshapen root. 
Mark where the wood-quist or the 

thrush 
Builds on tall pine or hazel bush ; 
See the brave bird with speckled breast 
Brood fearless on the teeming nest, 
And bid the little hands refrain 
From every act of wrong and pain. 



A CYNICS DAY-DREAM. 



109 



Observe the gossip conies sit 
By their own doors, the white owl flit 
Thro' the dim fields, while I enjoy 
The wondering talk of girl or boy. 
Sweet souls, which at life's portal 

stand, 
And all within, a wonderland — 
Oh, treasure of a guileless love, 
Fit prelude of the joys above ! 

There, when the swift week nears its 

end, 
To greet the welcome Sunday friend, 
Through the still fields we'll wend our 

way. 
To meet the guest at close of day. 
And then, when little eyes in vain 
Long time have sought the coming 

train, 
A gradual distant sound, which fills 
The bosom of the folded hills, 
Till with white steam or ruddy light 
The wayworn convoy leaps to sight, 
Then stops and sets the traveller down, 
Bringing the smoke and news of town. 
And then the happy hours to come, 
The walk or ride which leads us home. 
Past the tall woods through which 

'twould seem 
Home's white walls hospitablygleam, — 
The well-served meal, the neighbour 

guest, 
The rosy darlings curled and dressed ; 
And, when the house grows silent, then 
The lengthened talk on books and 
men ; 
I And on the Sunday morning still, 
I The pleasant stroll by wood-crowned 
I hill 

! To church, wherein my eyes grow dim 
I Hearing my children chant the hymn ; 
' And seeing in their earnest look 
Something of innocent rebuke, 



I lose the old doubt's endless pain, 
And am a little child again. 

If fate should grant me such a home, 
So sweet the tranquil days would come, 
I should not need, I trust, to sink 
My weariness in lust or drink. 
Scant pleasure should I think to gain 
From endless scenes of death and pain ; 
'Twould little profit me to slay 
A thousand innocents a day ; 
I should not much delight to tear 
With wolfish dogs the shrisking hare ; 
With horse and hound to track to 

death 
A helpless wretch that gasps for breath ; 
To make the fair bird check its wing, 
And drop, a dying, shapeless thing ; 
To leave the joy of all the wood 
A mangled heap of fur and blood, 
Or else escaping, but in vain, 
To pine, a shattered wretch, in pain ; 
Teeming, perhaps, or doomed to see 
Its young brood starve in misery ; 
With neither risk nor labour, still 
To live for nothing but to kill — 
I dare not ! If perplexed I am 
Between the tiger and the lamb ; 
If fate ordain that these shall give 
Their poor brief lives that I may live : 
Whate'er the law that bids them die. 
Others shall butcher them, not I, — 
Not such my work. Surely the Lord, 
Who made the devils by a word. 
Not men, but those who'd wield them 

well 
(jave these sad tortures of his Hell. 



Ah ! fool and blind, to wander so ; 
Who hast lived long enough to know 
With what insane confusions teem 
The mazes of our waking dream, — 



no 



TO A LOST LOVE. 



The dullard surfeited with gold 
His bloated coffers fail to hold, 
While the keen mind and generous 

brain 
From penury aspire in vain ; 
Love's choicest treasures flung away 
On some vile lump of coarsest clay ; 
Pure girlhood chained to M'retches foul, 
Tainted in body as in soul ; 
The precious love of wife or child 
Not for the loving heart and mild, 
But for the sullen churl, who ne'er 
Knew any rule but that of fear ; 
Fame, like Titania, stooping down 
To set on asses' ears a crown ; 
The shallow dunce, the fluent fool. 
The butt and laughter of the school. 
By fortune's strange caprice grown 

great, 
A light of forum or debate ; 
The carnal lump devoid of grace. 
With each bad passion in his face, 
A saintly idol, round whose knees 
Crowd throngs of burning devotees. 

Great heaven ! how strange the tangle is, 
W^hat old perplexity is this ? 
The very words of my complaint, 
What else are they than echoes faint 
Of the full fire, the passionate scorn, 
Of high-souled singers and forlorn, 
Who, in our younger England, knew 
No care for aught but what was true. 
But loved to lash with bitter hate 
The shameless vices of the great ; 
Who bade, in far-off days of Rome, 
In verse their indignation come ; 
Who, when we learn the secrets hid 
Beneath the eldest Pyramid, 
Or in those dim daj's further still, 
Whose nameless ruin builds the hill, 
Push back our search where'er we can, 
Till first the ape became the man, 



Will in rude satire bid us find 
The earliest victories of mind ? 
Strong souls, rebellious with their lot, 
Who longed for right and found it not ; 
Too strong to take things as they seem, 
Too weak to comprehend the scheme, 
Too deeply fired with honest trust 
To dream that God might be unjust j 
Yet, seeing how unequal show 
His providences here below. 
By paradoxes girt about, 
Grew thro' excess of faith to doubt. 
Oh, faithful souls, who love the true, 
Tho' all be false, yet will not you ; 
Tho' wrong shall overcome the right, 
Still is it hateful in your sight ; 
Tho' sorely tempted, you, and tried. 
The truth stands always at your side ; 
Tho' falsehood wear her blandest smile, 
You only she shall ne'er beguile ; 
For you, 'xnid spectral sights and shows, 
Life blushes with a hidden rose ; 
Thro' the loud din of lower things 
You hear the sweep of angel wings, 
And with a holy scorn possest. 
Wait till these clamours sink to rest. 



TO A LOST LOVE. 

CoLU snowdrops which the shrinking 
new-born year 
Sends like the dove from out the 
storm-tost ark ; 
Sweet violets which may not tarry here 
Beyond the earliest flutings of the 
lark ; 

Bright celandines which gild the tufted 
brake 
Before the speckled thrush her nest 
has made ; 



IN MEMORY OF A FRIEND. 



Fair frail anemones which star-like shake 
And twinkle by each sunnj' bank and 
glade ; 

Pale primroses wherewith the virgin 
spring, 
As with a garland, wreathes her 
comely head ; 
No eyes have I for you, nor voice to 
sing. 
]\Iy love is dead ! 

For she was young and pure and while 
as you, 
And fairer and more sweet, and ah ! 
as frail. 
I dare not give to her the honour due, 
Lest, for a strain so high, my voice 
should fail. 

Like you, she knew the springtide's 
changeful hours ; 
Like you, she blossomed ere the 
coming leaf; 
Like yoii, she knew not summer's teem- 
ing showers ; 
Like you, as comely, and, alas ! as 
brief. 

You may not see the roses, nor might 
she ; 
vSuch swift short beauty is its only 
fruit ; 
So a sweet silence is her eulogy, 
And praise is mute. 



IN MEMORY OF A FRIEND* 

Beneath the feathery fronds of palm 
The white stone of a double grave. 
And on the horizon, blue and calm. 
The tropic ocean wave. 

• Ernest Schalch, Attorney-General for 
Jamaica, who, with his only sister, died of 
yellow fever in February, 1874. 



'Tvvas three years since, no more, that 

thou. 
Dear friend, with us, in daily round, 
Didst labour where we labour now, 
'Mid London's surge of sound. 

Treading the dull slow paths of law, 
With little of reward or gain. 
To feel a high ambition gnav/ 
Thy heart with tooth of pain, 

And mark with scant content the crowd 

Fulfil the immemorial rule 

Which drives the fool with plaudits 

loud 
To glorify the fool. 

And so with patient scorn didst gain 
To winnow from the growing heap 
Of barren precedent the grain 
Which hides there buried deep. 

Till last, congenial labour came. 
To call thee o'er the tropic sea. 
And exile, gilt by toil and fame, 
Severed thy friends from thee. 

Brief as we hoped, but ah, how long ! 
Though lit by news of days well spent. 
Of rights defined, of law made strong, 
Of rebels grown content. 

Of ordered codes so reasoned out, 
Speaking with voice so true and clear, 
That none who hear them still may 

doubt 
" 'Tis Justice speaketh here." 

Yet not the less thou barest part 
In the old talk we loved before ; 
The newest growths of thought or art 
Delighted more and more. 



IT SHALL BE WELL— A REMONSTRANCE, 



And all the marvels of thy isle, 
The lavish wealth of sea and land, 
The skies with their too constant smile, 
Loud surf on breathless strand, 

The shallow nature fierce, yet gay, 
Of our dark brethren ; thou didst learn, 
Noting — but gazing, far away, 
With eyes that still would yearn, 

For that fair time when, toil being 

done, 
The happy day at length should come, 
When with our kindly autumn sun 
Thou should'st revisit home. 

♦ * * * 

It was this very year ; and then 
The plague, which long time, dealing 

death, 
Had vexed the shores of kindred men. 
On those breathed deadly breath. 

And one, I know not who, their guest, 
Sickening, Love drew them forth to 

tend, 
Careless of needful food and rest, 
Their fever-stricken friend. 

Who owed to them life's refluent 

power ; 
While for those duteous martyrs twain. 
Brother and Sister, one blest hour 
Brought one release from pain. 

Too generous natures ! kindred souls !— 
And now, round those twin tombs the 

wave, 
Forgetful of their story, rolls. 
And the palms shade their grave. 
* * * * 

And we — what shall we say of thee ?— 
Thou hast thy due reward, oh, friend— 
We serve a High Necessity, 
To an Invisible End. 



That waste nor halting comes at all 
In all the scheme is all we know ; 
The force was formed that bade thee 

fall, 
Millions of years ago. 

The clouds of circumstance unite, 
The winds of fate together roll ; 
They meet ; there bursts a sudden light, 
And consecrates a soul ! 



IT SHALL BE WELL.. 

If thou shall be in heart a child, 
Forgiving, tender, meek, and mild, 
Though with light stains of earth 
defiled. 
Oh, soul, it shall be well. 

It shall be well with thee indeed, 
Whate'er thy race, thy tongue, thy 

creed ; 
Thou shalt not lose thy fitting meed. 
It shall be surely well. 

Not where, nor how, nor when we 

know, 
Nor by what stages thou shalt grow ; 
We may but whisper faint and low, 
"It shall be surely well." 

It shall be well with thee, oh, soul, 
Tho' the heavens wither like a scroll ; 
Tho' sun and moon forget to roll. 
Oh, soul, it shall be well. 



A REMONSTRANCE. 

If ever, for a passing day, 
My careless rhymes shall gain to please, 
I would that those who read may say, 
" Left he no more than these?'" 



SONG. 



i'3 



For sure it is a piteous thing 
That those blest souls to whom is given 
The instinct and the power to sing, 
The choicest gift of heaven, 

Not from high peak to peak alone 
Our faithful footsteps care to guide, 
But oft by plains of sand and stone, 
Dull wastes, and naught beside. 

Who the low crawling verse prolong, 
Careless alike of fame and time ; 
The form, but not the soul of song — 
A dreary hum of rhyme. 

A straight road, by a stagnant stream, 
Where the winged steed, which late 

would soar 
From the white summits like a dream, 
Creeps slowly evermore. 



A babble of sound, like that flat noise 
Which, when the harmonies grow 

dumb, 
Between the symphony's awful joys. 
Too oft is heard to come. 

Grave error ; since not all of life 
Is rhythmic ; oft by level ways 
We walk ; the sweet creative strife, 
The inspired heroic days, 

Are rare for all, — no food for song, 
Are common hours ; and those who 

hold 
The gift, the inspiration strong. 
More precious far than gold. 

Only when heart is fired and brain. 
And the soul spreads its soaring wing. 
Only when nobler themes constrain, 
Should ever dare to sing. 



THIRD SERIES (1875). 



SONG. 

Tell me where I may quench the too 

fierce fire 
Of hope and of desire ; 
Tell me how I may from my soul remove 
The sting and pain of love ; 
Tell me, and I will give to thee, 
Magician, my whole soul in fee. 

And yet I know not what of fit reward, 

For enterprise so hard, 

I might convey thee in a loveless soul, 

Whose currents no more roll : 

A corpse, corruptible and cold, 

Were no great prize to have and hold. 

Time only is it that will deign to take 
Such things for their own sake, 



Preferring age to youth, grey hairs to 

brown. 
And to bright smiles the frown. 
Time takes the hope, Time dulls the 

smart. 
And first makes slow, then stops tlie 

heart. 

Wherefore to Time I will address my 

song. 
Time, equable and strong, 
Take thou all hope and longing clean 

away — - 
And yet I prithee stay ; 
Forbear, for rather I would be 
Consumed than turn to ice with 

thee. 



114 -I HE HOME ALT. 


AR—THE VOYAGE. 




What giveth He who gives them 


THE HOME ALTAR. 


sleep, 




But a brief death less deep ? 


Why should we seek at all to gain 


Or what the fair dreams given 


By vigils, and in pain, 


But ours who, daily dying, dream a 


By lonely life and empty heart, 


happier heaven ? 


To set a soul apart 




Within a cloistered cell, 


Then not within a cloistered wall 


For whom the precious, homely hearth 


Will we expend our days ; 


would serve as well ? 


But dawns that break and eves 




that fall 


There, with the early breaking 


Shall bring their dues of praise. 


morn, 


This best befits a Ruler always 


Ere quite the day is born, 


near. 


The lustra! waters flow serene. 


This duteous worship mild, and reason- 


And each again grows clean ; 


able fear. 


From sleep, as from a tomb. 




Born to another dawn of joy, and hope. 




and doom. 


THE VOYAGE. 


There through the sweet and toil- 


Who climbs the Equatorial main 


some day, 


Drives on long time through mist and 


To labour is to pray ; 


cloud. 


There love with kindly beaming 


Through zones of storm, through thun- 


eyes 


ders loud. 


Prepares the sacrifice ; 


For many a night of fear and pain. 


And voice and innocent smile 




Of childhood do our cheerful liturgies 


Till one night all is clear, and lo ! 


beguile. 


He sees with wondering, awe-struck 




eyes, 


There, at his chaste and frugal 


In depths above, in depths below. 


feast, 


Strange constellations light the skies- 


Love sitteth as a Priest ; 




And with mild eyes and mien 


New stars, moire splendid and more fair. 


sedate. 


Yet not without a secret loss ; 


Plis deacons stand and wait ; 


He seeks in vain the Northern Bear, 


And round the holy table 


And finds instead the Southern Cross. 


Pat?n and chalice range in order 




sei-viceable. 


Yet dawns the self-same sun— the same 




The deep below the keel which lies ; 


And when ere night, the vespers 


Though this may burn with brighter 


said, 


flame, 


Low lies each weary head, 


And that respond to bluer skies. 



THE FOOD OF SONG. 



li: 



The self-same earth, the self-same sky : 
And though through clouds and tem- 
pests driven, 
The self-same seeker lifts an eye 
That sees another side of heaven. 

No change in man, or earth, or aught, 
Save those strange secrets of the night : 
Nor there, save that another thought 
Has reached them through another sight, 

Which may but know one hemisphere, 
The earth's mass blotting out the blue. 
Till one day, leaving shadows here, 
It' sees all heaven before its view. 



THE FOOD OF SOXG. 

How best doth vision come 

To the poet's mind, — 

Lonely beneath the blue, unclouded 
dome, 

Or battling with the mighty ocean- wind ; 

In fair spring mornings, wdth the soar- 
ing lark. 

Or amid roaring midnight forests dark ? 

Shall he attune his voice 

To sweetest song, 

"When earth and sea and sky alike 

rejoice. 
And men are blest, and think no 

thought of wrong, 
J:i some ideal heaven, some happy isle, 
Where life is stiffened to a changeless 

smile ? 

Or best amid the noise 

Of high designs, 

Loud onsets, shatterings, awful battle 

joys, 
NVherefor the loftier spirit longs and 

pines ; 



Or by the depths of Thought's un- 

fathomed sea ; 
Or to loud thunders of the Dawn to be ? 

Nature is less than naught 

In smile or frown, 

But for the formless, underlying thought 

Of mind and purpose greater than our 

own ; 
This only can these empty shows 

inform, 
Smiles through the calm, and animates 

the storm. 

Nor 'mid the clang and rush 

Of mightier thought. 

The steeps, the snows, the gulfs, that 

whelm and crush 
The seeker with the treasure he has 

sought ; 
Too vast, too swift, too formless to 

inspire 
The Active hand, or touch the lips with 

fire. 

Rather amid the throng 

Of toiling men 

He finds the food and sustenance of 

song. 
Spread by hidden hands, again, and 

yet again, 
Where'er he goes, by crowded city 

street, 
He fares thro' springing fancies sad 

and sweet — 

Some innocent baby smile ; 

A close-wound waist ; 

Fathers and children ; things of shame 

and guile ; 
Dim eyes, and lips at parting kissed in 

haste ; 



ii6 



THE YOUTH OF THOUGHT 



The 



the 



halt, the blind, me prospei 
thing of ill ; 
The thief, the wanton, touch and vex 
him still. 

Or if sometimes he turn 

With a new thrill. 

And strives to paint anew with words 

that burn 
The inner thought of sea, or sky, or 

hill : 
Ifis because a breath of human life 
Has touched them : joy and suffering, 

rest and strife. 

And he sees mysteries 

Above, around, 

Fair spiritual fleeting agencies 

Haunting each foot of consecrated 

ground : 
And so, these fading, raises bolder eyes 
Beyond the furthest limits of the skies, 

And every thought and word, 

And all things seen. 

And every passion which his heart has 

stirred, 
And every joy and sorrow which has 

been. 
And every step of life his feet have 

trod. 
Lead by broad stairs of glory up to 

God. 



THE YOUTH OF THOUGHT 

Oh happy days ! oh joyous time ! 

When thought was gay and man was 
young, 
And to a golden flow of rhyme, 

Life like a melody was sung ; 



Wlien, in the springtime of the earth, 
The cloud-capt hill, the dewy grove. 

Clear lake and rippling stream gave 
birth 
To shy Divinities of love ; 

When often to the jovial feast 
Of love or wine the people came, 

And Nature was the only priest. 

And Youth and Pleasure knew not 
shame. 



Nor darker shape of wrong or ill 
The fearful fancy might inspire, 

Than vine-crowned on some shady hill, 
The Satyr nursing quaint desire. 

And if some blooming youth or maid 
In depths of wood or stream were 
lost. 

Some love-lorn Deity, 'twas said. 
The blissful truant's path had crossed, 

Sweet time of fancy, giving place 
To times of thinking scarce less 
blest, 
When Wisdom wore a smiling face. 
And Knowledge was like Fancy 
drest. 

And Art with Language lived ingrown, 
The cunning hand and golden 
tongue : 

By this the form Divine was shown, 
By that its deathless praises sung. 

When in cool temples fair and white, 
By purple sea, or myrtle shade, 

The gods took shape to mortal sight, 
By their own creatures' hands re- 
made. 



THE YOUTH OF THOUGHT. 



117 



Vnd daily, to the cheerful noise 
Of wrestling, or the panting race — 

Mid the clear laughter of the boys, 
And tender forms of youthful grace — 

Grave sages walked in high debate 
Beneath the laurel grove, and sought 

To solve the mysteries of Fate, 

And sound the lowest deeps of 
Thought ; 

Nor knew that they, as those indeed, 
Were naked, taking fair for right ; 

With beauty only for all creed, 
Yet not without some heaven-sent 
light. 

Now preaching clear the deathless 
soul ; 
Now winging love from sloughs of 
shame ; 
And oft from earthly vapours foul, 
Soaring aloft with tongues of flame. 

Knew they no inward voice to vex 
The careless joyance of their way — 

Xo pointing finger stern, which checks 
The sad transgressor of to-day? 

Fair dream, if any dream be fair, 
Which knows np fuller life than 
thine ; 

Which only moves through earthly air, 
And builds on shadows half divine ; 

How art thou fled ! For us no more 
Dryad or Satyr haunts the grove ; 

No Nereid sports upon the shore. 
Nor with wreathed horn the Tritons 



Who breathe a fuller, graver air, 

Long since to manhood's stature 
grown ; 



Who leave our childhood's fancies fair, 
For pains and pleasures of our own. 

For us no more the young vine climbs, 
Its gadding tendrils flinging down ; 

Who move in sadder, wiser times, 
Whose thorns are woven for a 
crown. 

The lily and the passion-flower 

Preach a new tale of gain and loss, 

And in the wood-nymph's closest bower 
The springing branches form the 
Cross. 

"A great hope traversing the earth," 
Has taken all the young world's 
bloom, 
And for the joy and flush of birth, 
Has left the solemn thought of 
doom ; 

And made the body no more divine. 
And built our Heaven no longer 
here. 

And given for joyous fancies fine. 
Souls bowed with holy awe and fear. 

And far beyond the suns, removed 
The godhead seen by younger eyes, 

Leaving the people once beloved. 
Girt round by dreadful mysteries ; 

Fulfilled with thoughts, more fair and 
dear 
Than all the lighter joys of yore, 
Immeasurable hopes brought near, 
And Heaven laid open more and 
more. 

But not with love and peace alone 
Time came, which older joys could 
take ; 



ii8 



SONG. 



But with fierce brand and hopeless 
groan, 
Red war, the dungeon, and the 
stake ; 

And hves by Heaven too much opprest, 
And cloisters dim with tears and 
sighs, 
And young hearts withered in the 
breast, 
And fasts and stripes and agonies ; 

And for Apollo breathing strength, 
And Aphrodite warm with life ; 

A tortured Martyr come at length, 
To the last pang of lifelong strife. 

While round us daily move no more 
Those perfect forms of youthful 
grace, 

No more men worship as before 

The rounded limb, the clear-cut face ; 

"Who see the dwarfed mechanic creep. 
With hollow cheek, and lungs that 
bleed, 
Or the swart savage fathom-deep, 
Who comes to air, to sleep, and 
breed. 

Aye, but by loom, or forge, or mine. 
Or squalid hut, there breaks for these 

Hope more immense, awe more divine 
Than ever dawned on Sok rates. 

Who if they seek to live again 

In careless lives the pagan charm, 

May only prove a lifelong pain, 

For that clear conscience void of 
harm. 

For in the manhood of God's days 
We live, and not in careless youth ; 



The essence more than form we praise, 
And Beauty moves us less than 
Truth. 



From youth to age ; till cycles hence 
Another and a higher Spring, 

And with a truer innocence, 

Again the world shall think and sing. 



SONG. 

I WOULD thou might'st not vex me 
with thine eyes, 
Thou fair Ideal Beauty, nor wouid'st 
shame 
All lower thoughts and visions as they 
rise. 
As in mid-noon a flame. 

For now thy presence leaves no prospect 
fair, 
Nor joy in act, nor charm in any 
maid, 
Nor end to be desired, for which men 
dare. 
Thou making nre afraid. 

Because life seems through thee a thing 
too great 
To spend on these, which else might 
grow to thee ; 
So that fast bound, I idly hesitate ; 
I prithee set me free ; 

Or, hold me, if thou wilt, but come 
not near. 
Let me pursue thee still in ghostly 
grace ; 
Far off let me pursue thee, for I fear 
To faint before thy face. 



AT CHAMBERS. 



'9 



AT CHAMBERS. 

To the chamber, where now uncaring 

I sit apart from the strife, 
While the fool and the knave are sharing 

The pleasures and profits of life, 

There came a faint knock at the door, 
Not long since on a terrible day ; 

One faint little knock, and no more ; 
And I brushed the loose papers away. 

And as no one made answer, I rose, 
With quick step and impatience of 
look, 

And a glance of the eye which froze, 
And a ready voice of rebuke. 

But when the door opened, behold ! 

A mother, low-voiced and mild. 
Whose thm shawl and weak arms enfold 

A pale little two-year-old child. 

What brought her there? Would I 
relieve her ? 
Was all the poor mother could say ; 
For her child, scarce recovered from 
fever, 
Left the hospital only that day. 

Pale, indeed, was the child ; yet so 
cheerful, 

That, seeing me wonder, she said. 
Of doubt and repulse, grown fearful, 

" Please look at his dear little head ; " 

And snatched off the little bonnet, 
And so in a moment laid bare 

A shorn little head, and upon it 
No trace of the newly-come hair. 



When, seeing the stranger's eye 
Grow soft ; of an innocent guile 

The child looked up, shrinking and shy. 
With the ghost of a baby smile. 

Poor child ! I thought, so soon come 
To the knowledge of lives oppressed. 

To whom poverty comes with home. 
And sickness brings food and rest : 

Who art launched forth, a frail little 
boat, 
In the midst of life's turbulent sea, 
To sink, it may be, or to float 

On great waves that care nothing for 
thee. 

What awaits thee? An early peace 
In the depths of a little grave. 

Or, despite all thy ills to increase. 
Through some dark chance, mighty 
to save 'j 

Till in stalwart manhood you meet 
The strong man, who regards you to- 
day, 

Crawling slowly along the street, 
In old age withered and gray ? 

Who knows ? But the thoughts I have 
told 
In one instant flashed through my 
brain. 
As the poor mother, careful of cold. 
Clasped her infant to her again. 

And I, if I searched for my purse. 
Was I selfish, say you, and wrong ? 

Surely silver is wasted worse 

Than in earning the right to a song 1 



EVENSONG. 



E VENSONG. 

The hymns and the prayers were done, and the village church was still, 
As I lay in a waking dream in the churchyard upon the hill. 

The graves were all around, and the dark yews over my head, 

And below me the winding stream and the exquisite valley were spread. 

The sun was sloping down with a glory of dying rays, 

And the hills were bathed in gold, and the woods were vocal with praise. 

But from the deep-set valley there rose a vapour of grey, 

And the sweet day sank, and the glory waxed fainter and faded away. 

Then there came, like a chilling wind, a cold, low whisper of doubt, 
Which silenced the echo of hymns, and blotted the glories out. 

And I wrestled with powers unseen, and strove with a Teacher divine, 
Like Jacob who strove with the angel, and found with the dawn a sign. 

****** 
For I thought of the words they sang : " It is He that hath made us indeed " ; 
And my thought flew back to the Fathers of thought and their atheist creed- 
How atom with atom at first fortuitously combined, 
Formed all, from the worlds without to the innermost worlds of mind ; 

And I thought : What, if this be true, and no Maker there is indeed, 
And God is the symbol alone of a feeble and worn-out creed ; 

And from uncreate atoms, impelled by a blind chance driving on free. 
Grew together the primal forms of all essences that be ! 

Then a voice : If they were, indeed, they were separate one from one 
By a gulph as broad as yawns in space betwixt sun and sun — 

Self-centred and self-contained, disenvironed and isolate ; 
Drawn together by a hidden love, torn apart by a hidden hate. 

What power was this — chance, will you say ? But chance, what else can it mean 
Than the hidden Cause of things by human reason unseen ? 

Chance ! Then Chance were a name for God, or each atom bearing a soul 
Indivisible, like with like, part and whole of the Infinite Whole, 



EVENSONG. 121 



Were God, as the Pantheist faught, God in earth, and in sky, and in air, 
God through every thought and thing, and made manifest everywhere ; 

The spring and movement of things — the stir, the breathing of breath, 
I Without which all things were quenched in the calm of an infinite death ; 

Or, if within each there lay some germ of an unborn power, 

God planted it first, God quickened, God raised it from seed to flower. 

Though beneath the weird cosmical force, which we wield and yet cannot nr.me, 
From the germ or the rock we draw out low gleams of life's faintest flame ; 

Though we lose the will that commands, and the muscles that wait and serve, 
] In some haze of a self-set spring of the molecules of nerve ; 

Though we sink all spirit in matter, and let the Theogonies die, 

Life and death are ; thinker and thought ; outward, inward ; I, and not T, 

And the I is the Giver of life, and without it the matter must die, 

****** 
Then I ceased for a while from thought, as I lay on the long green grass, 
Hearing echoes of hymns anew, and letting the moments pass. 

The evening was mounting upward ; the sunbeams had left the hill ; 

But the dying daylight lingered, and all the valley was still. 
1 ****** 

I Then I said : But if God there be, how shall man by his thinking find, 
I Who is only a finite creature, the depths of the Infinite Mind — 

I Who sounds with a tiny plummet, who scans with a purblind eye, 
. The depths of that fathomless ocean, the wastes of that limitless sky ? 
I 
I _. 

Shall we bow to a fetish, a symbol, which maybe nor sees nor hears ; 

Or, seeing and hearing indeed, takes no thought for our hopes or fears ; 

Who is dumb, though we long for a word ; who is deaf, though his children cry; 
Who is Master, yet bears with evil— Lord, and lets all precious things die? 

I 

j Or if in despair we turn from the godless and meaningless plan, 
What do we, but make for ourselves a God in the image of man— 

A creature of love and hate, a creature who makes for good, 

But barred by an evil master from working the things that he would ? 



£y£XSOXG. 



If he be not a reflex image, we may not know him at all ; 

If he be, we are God ourselves — to ourselves we sh;ill stand or fall. 

Then the voice : But what folly is this ! Cannot God indeed be known. 
If we know not the hidden essence that forms Ilini and builds His throne? 

Is all our knowledi^e naught, of sea, and of sky, and of star, 

Till we know them, not as they seem to our thinkins;, but as they are ? 

\\'e who build the whole fabric of knowledge on vague abstractions sublime ; 
We who whirl through an intinite space, and live in an infinite time ; 

We who prate of Motion and Force, not knowing that on either side 
Black gulphs unavoidable yawn, dark riddles our thought deride ; 

Shall we hold our science as naught in all things of earth, because 

We know but the seemiugs and shows, the relations, and not the cause — 

Not only as he who admires the rainbow and cloud of goUl, 
Knows that 'tis but a form of vapour his wondering eyes behold ; 

But as he who sees and knows, and knowing would fain ignore 

What he knows since the essence of things is hid, and he knows not more — 

Or who would not love his love, or walk hand in hand with his fiieml. 

Since he sees not the roots of the tree from whose branches life's blossoms depend ? 

Or how should the sight we see, any more than the sound we hear, 
Be a thing which exists for our thought, apart from the eye or the ear ; 

Is not every atom of dust, which compacted we call the earth, 
A miracle batfling our thought with insoluble wonders of birth ? 

And know we not, indeed, that the matter which men have taught. 
Is itself an essence unseen and untouched— but by spirit and thought ? 

Tush ! It is but a brain-sick dream. What was it that taught us the laws 
Which stand as a bar between us and the thought of the Infinite Cause ? 

Is He infinite, out of relation, and absolute, past finding out ? 
Reach we not an antinomy here? feel we here no striving of doubt ? 



EVENSONG. 



How, then, shall the finite define the bounds of the infinite plan, 
This is finite, and infinite this : here is Deity, here is man. 

If our judgment be relative only, how then shall our brain transcend 
The limits of relative thought ; grown too eager to comprehend ? 

For he passes the bounds of relation, if any there be who can 
Distinguish the absolute God from the relative in man : 

He has bridged the gulph ; he has leaped o'er the bound ; he has seen with his eyes 
For a moment the land unseen, that beyond the mountain peaks lies. 

Nay ! we see but a part of God, since we gaze with a finite sight ; 
And yet not Darkness is He, but a blinding splendour of light. 

Do we shrink from this light, and let our dazzled eyeballs fall ? 
. Nay ! a God fully known or utterly dark, were not God at all. 

Though we hold not that in some sphere which our thought may never conceive. 
There comes not a time when, to know may be all, and not, to believe ; 

Nor yet that the right which we love, and the wrong which we hate to-day, 
, May not show as reversed, or as one, when the finite has passed away ; 

God we know in our image indeed, since we are in the image of Him, 
Of His splendour a faint low gleam, of His glor)' a reflex dim. 

Bowing not to the all unknown, nor to that ^hich is searched out quite ; 

But to That which is known, yet unknown — to the darkness that comes of light. 

To the contact of God with man, to the struggle and triumph of right. 

******* 
Then I ceased for a while from thought, as I lay on the long green grass. 
Hearing echoes of hymns grown nearer, and letting the moments pass. 

( Exult, oh dust and ashes I the low voices seemed to say j 
And then came a sudden hush, and the jubilance faded away. 

The evening was dying now, and the moon-rise was on the hill, 
.\nd the soft light touched the river, and all the valley was still. 

♦ ***♦♦«■ 

Then I thought : But if God there be, and our thought may reach Him indeed, 
How should this bare knowledge alone stand in lieu of a fuller creed ? 



124 EVENSONG. 

If He be and is good, as they say, how yet can our judgment approve, 
'Mid the rule of His iron laws, the place of His infinite love? 

The rocks are built up of death, earth and sea teem with ravin and wrong ; 
The sole law in Nature vi^e learn, is the law that strengthens the strong. 

Through countless ages of time, the Lord has withdrawn Him apart 
From all the world He has made, save the world of the human heart. 

Without and within all is pain, from the cry of the child at birth, 
To its parting sigh in age, when it looks for a happier earth. 

Should you plead that God's order goes forth with a measured footstep sublime, 
Know you not that you thrust Him back thus to the first beginnings of time, — 

That a spark, a moment, a flash, and His work was over and done ; 
And the worlds Avere sent forth for ever, each circling around its sun. 

Bearing with it all secrets of being, all potencies undefined. 

All forms and changes of matter, all growths and achievements of mind. 

What is there for our worship in this, and should not our reason say, 
He is, and made us indeed, but hides Him too far away ? 

Though He lives, yet is He as one dead ; and we, who would prostrate fall 
Before the light of His Presence, we see not nor know Him at all. 

Then the voice : Oh folly of doubt ! what is time that we deem so far, 
What else but a multiple vast of the little lives that are ? 

He who lives for the fifty years, which scarce rear thought to its prime, i 

Already a measure has lived of a thousand years of time. I 

Twice this, and Christ spoke not yet, and from this what a span appears, 
The space till our thought is lost in the mists of a million years ! 

A thousand millions of years — we have leapt with a thought, with a word ; 
To the time when no flutter of life 'neath the shield of the trilobite stirred. 

All time is too brief for our thought, and yet we would bring God nigh. 
Till He worked in His creature's sight, man standing undazzled by. 



EVENSONG. 125 



Such a God were not God indeed ; nor, if He should change at all, 
Should we hold, as we hold Him now, the God of both great and small. 

How know we the great things from small ? how mark we the adequate cause, 
j Which might make the Creator impede the march of His perfect laws, — 

I 
We,* who know but a part, not the whole ? Or were it a fitting thought 
He should stoop in our sight to amend the errors His hand had wrought, 

So His laws were not perfect at all ? or should He amend them indeed, 
How supply by a fitful caprice the want of a normal creed ? 

All life is a mode of force, and all force that is force must move ; 

'Tis a friction of Outward and Inward, a contrast of Hatred and Love. 

Toy and Grief, Right and Wrong, Life and Death, Finite, Infinite, Matter and 

These are the twin wheels of the Chariot of Life, which without them stood still. 

Would you seek in an order reversed and amended a Hand divine ? 
Nay the Wonder of wonders lies in unchangeable design. 

Should God break His law as He might ; should He stoop from His infinite skies 
To redress that which seems to us wrong, to raise up the life that dies ; 

Should He save from His wolf His lamb, from His tiger His innocent child ; 
j Should He quench the fierce flames, or still the great waves clamouring wild, 

I think a great cry would go up from an orderless Universe, 
And all the fair fabric of things would wither, as under a curse. 

'Tis the God of the savage, is this. What do we who rise by degrees 
To the gift of the mind that perceives, and the gift of the eye that sees ? 

Does not all our nature tend to a law of unbending rule, 
j Till equity comes but to mend the law that was made by the fool ? 

I Who shows highest ? — the child or the savage, whose smiles change to rage or 
to tears ? 
Or the statesman moving, unmoved, through a nation's desires and fears ? 

Or the pilgrim whose eyes look onward, as If to a distant home, 
j Never turning aside from his path, whatever alluirements may come ? 



126 EVENSONG. 

All Higher is more Unmoved ; and the more unbroken the law, 
The more sure does the Giver show to the eyes of a wondering awe. 

Nor is it with all of truth that they make their voices complain, 
Who weary our thought with tales of a constant ruin and pain. 

It is but a brain-sick dream that would gloat o'er the hopeless bed, 

Or the wreck, or the crash, or the fight, with their tales of the dying and dead. 



Pain comes ; hopeless pain, God knows and we know, again and again ; 
But even pain has its intervals blest, when 'tis heaven to be free from pain. 

And I think that the wretch who lies pressed by a load of incurable ill, 
With a grave pity pities himself, but would choose to have lived to it still ; 

And, as he whom the tiger bears in his jaws to his blood-stained den 

Feels no pain nor fear, but a wonder, what comes in the wonderful " Then," 

He pities himself and yet knows, as he casts up life's chequered sum, 
It were best on the whole to have lived, whatever calamity come. 

And the earth is full of joy. Every blade of grass that springs ; 
Every cool worm that crawls content as the eagle on soaring wings ; 

Every summer day instinct with life ; every dawn when from waking bird 
And morning hum of the bee, a chorus of praise is heard ; 

Every gnat that sports in the sun for his little life of a day ; 
Every flower that opens its cup to the dews of a perfumed May ; 

Every child that wakes with a smile, and sings to the ceiling at dawn ; 
Every bosom which knows a new hope stir beneath its virginal lawn ; 

Every young soul, ardent and high, rushing forth into life's hot fight ; 
Every home of happy content, lit by love's own mystical light ; 

Every worker who works till the evening, and earns before niglit his wage. 
Be his work a furrow straight-drawn, or the joy of a bettered age ; 



EVENSONG. 127 



Every thinker who, standing aloof from the throng, finds a high delight 
In striking with tongue or with pen a stroke for the triumph of right ; — 

All these know that life is sweet ; all these, with a consonant voice. 

Read the legend of Time with a smile, and that which thev read is, " Rejoice ! " 



Then again I ceased from thought, as I lay on the l^.ig green grass, 
I Hearing hymns which grew fuller and fuiier, and letting the moments pass. 

I Exult, oh dust and ashes ! exult and rejoice ! they said, 
For blessed are they who live, and blessed are they who are dead. 

I 
Then again they ceased and Mere still, and my thought began once more, 
Kut touched with a silvery gleam of hopes that were hidden before ; 

The moon had climbed up the clear sky, far above the black pines on the hill, 
And the ri\er ran molten silver, and all the valley was still. 

******** 

Then I said : But if God there be, who made us indeed and is good, 
What guide has He left for our feet to walk in the ways that He would ? 

For though He should speak indeed, yet, as soon as His voice grew dumb, 
It were only through human speech that the message it bore might come, 

j Sunk to levels of human thought, and always marred and confined 
By the chain of a halting tongue, and the curse of a finite mind ; 

So that he who would learn, indeed, what precepts His will has taught, 
Must dim with a secular learning the brightness his soul has sought. 

Who can tell how those scattered leaves through gradual ages grew. 
Adding chaff and dust from the world to the accents simple and true? 

If one might from the seer's wild visions, or stories of fraud and blood, 
Or lore of the world«worn Sultan, discern the sure voice of good. 

Such a mind were a God to itself; or if you should answer. For each 
God has set a sure mentor within, with power to convince and teach ; 



128 EVENSONG. 



Yet it speaks with a changeful voice, which alters with race and clime, 
Nay, even in the self-same lands is changed with the changes of time ; 

So that 'twixt the old Europe of story and that which we know to-day, 
Yawns a gulph, as wide almost as parts us from far Cathay ; 

What power has such voice to help us ? Or if we should turn instead 
To the precious dissonant pages, which keep what the Teacher said ; 

How reduce them to one indeed, or how seek in vain to ignore 
The forgotten teachers who taught His counsels of mercy before ? 

Not " an eye for an eye " alone, was the rule which they loved to teach, 
But Mercy, and Pity, and Love, though they spoke with a halting speech, 

And He spake with the tongue of those who had spoken and then were dumb, 
And clothed in the words of the Law, which He loved, would His precepts 
come ; 

Other teachers have drawn more millions, who follow more faithful than we ; 
Other teachers have taught a rule as stern and unselfish as He. 

If we shrink from the Caliph fierce, who carved out a faith with his sword, 
What say we of the pilgrim who sways the old East with his gentle word ? 

Or what of the sage whose vague thoughts, over populous wastes of earth, 
Have led millions of fettered feet to the grave from the day of birth ? 

Or how can we part indeed, the show, the portent, the sign, 

From the simple words which glow with the light of a teaching Divine? 

And if careless of these, as of growths which spring up and bear fruit and fall. 
Yet how shall our thought accept the crowning wonder of all ? 

\ 

Yet if this we reject, wherein, doth our faith and assurance lie? , 

What is it to us that God lives, we who live for a little and die ; 

Or why were it not more wise to live as the beasts of to-day. 
Taking life, while it lasts, as a gift, and secure of the future as they? 

Then the voice : Oh, disease of doubt ! now I seem to hold you indeed, 
Keeping fast in my grasp at length the sum of your dreary creed. 



- I 



EVENSONG. 129 



How else should man prove God's will, than through methods of human 

thought ? 
How else than through human words should he gather the things that he ought r 

If the Lord should speak day by day from Sinai, mid clouds and fire, 
SHould we hear 'mid those thunders loud the still voices which now inspire ? 

Would not either that awful sound, like that vivid and scorching blaze. 
Confuse our struggHng thought, and our tottering footsteps amaze ? 

Or, if it should peal so^clear that to hear were to obey indeed, 
'Twere a thing of dry knowledge alone, not one of a faithful creed ; 

No lantern for erring feet, but a glare on a white, straight road, 
Where life struggled its weary day, to sink before night with its load ; 

' Where the blinded soul might long for the shade of a cloud of doubt, 
I And yearn for dead silence, to blot that terrible utterance out. 

Yet God is not silent indeed ; not seldom from every page^ 
From the lisping story of eld to the seer with his noble rage ; 

From the simple life divine, with its accents gentle and true. 

To the thinker who formed by his learning and watered the faith as it grew ; 

All are fired by the Spirit of God. Nor true is the doubt you teach. 
That God speaks not to all men the same, but differs 'twixt each and each, 

! Each differs from each a little, with difference of race and of clime ; 
Each is changed, but not transformed, with the onward process of time ; 

' Each nation, each age, has its laws, whereto it shall stand or fall. 
But built on a wider Law, which is under and over them all. 

Nor doubt we that from Western wilds to the long-sealed isles of Japan, 
There runs the unbroken realm of a Law that is common to man. 

I Not as ours shows the law they obey, and yet it is one and the same, 
Though it comes in a varying shape, and is named by another name. 

Not so shall your doubt prevail ; nor if any should dream to-day. 
By praise of Jew or of Greek, to dissolve His glory away, 



I30 EVENSONG. 

Can they hold that God left His world with no gleam of glory fiom Him, 
No light clouds edged with splendour, no radiance of Godhead dim. 

Others were before Christ had come. Oh ! dear dead Teacher, whose word, 
Long before the sweet voice on the Hill, young hearts had quickened and stirred ; 

Who spak'st of the soul and the life ; with limbs chilled by the rising death. 
Yielding up to thy faith, with a smile, the last gasp of thy earthly breath ; — 

And thou, oh golden-mouthed sage, who with brilliance of thought as of tongue, 
Didst sing of thy Commonwealth fair, the noblest of epics unsung ; 

In whose pages thy Master's words shine forth, sublimed and refined 
In the music of perfect language, inspired by a faithful mind ; — 

And ye seers of Israel and doctors, whose breath was breathed forth to move 
The dry dead bones of the Law with the life of a larger love ; — 

Or thou, great Saint of the East, in whose footsteps the millions have trod 
Till from life, like an innocent dream, they pass'd and were lost in God ; — 

And thou, quaint teacher of old, whose dead words, though all life be gone. 
Through the peaceful Atheist realms keep the millions labouring on ; — 

Shall I hold that ye, as the rest, spake no echo of things divine. 

That no gleam of a clouded sun through the mists of your teaching may shine ? 

Nay ; such thoughts were to doubt of God. Yet, strange it is and yet sure. 
No teacher of old was full of mercy as ours, or pure. 

'Twixt the love that He taught, and the Greek with his nameless, terrible love, 
Yawns a gulph as wide as parts hell beneath and heaven above ; 

'Twixt His rule of a Higher Mercy and that which the Rabbi taught, 
Lies the gulph between glowing Act and barren ashes of Thought. 

For the pure thought smirched and fouled, or buried in pedant lore. 
He brought a sweet Reason of Force, such as man knew never before. 

What to us are the men of the East, though they preach their own Gospel 

indeed? 
We are men of the West, and shall stand or fall by a Western creed. 



EVENSONG. 



Though we see in those Scriptures antique, faint flames of Diviner fire, 

Who would change to Buddha from Christ, as a change from lower to higlier ? 

Nay ! He is our Teacher indeed. Little boots it to-day to seek 

To arraign, with a laboured learning, the words that men heard Him speak ; 

To cavil, to carp, to strive, through the mists of an age-long haze, 
To dim to a common light the star which could once amaze ; 

To fix by some pigmy canon, too short for the tale of to-day, 
The facts of a brief life, fled eighteen centuries away ; 

To mark by a guess, and to spurn, as born of a later age, 

The proofs which, whenever writ, bear God's finger on every page ; 

Or to sneer at the wonders they saw Him work, or believed they saw ; 
We who know that unbending sequence is only a johase of law, 

No wonder which God might do if it rested on witness of men, 
Would turn to it our thought of to-day as it turned the multitudes then. 

Nor proved would avail a whit if the teaching itself were not pure ; 
Nor if it were pure as His would make it one whit more sure. 

And for the great Wonder of all. If any there be who fears 

That the spark of God in his breast may be quenched in a few short years ; 

Who feels his faith's fire blaze aloft more clear than it burnt before, 

By the thought of the empty tomb and the stone rolled back from the door : 

For him was the miracle done. If no proof makes clearer to me 
Than His word to my inner sense, the Higher life that shall be ; 

If no Force that has once leapt forth can ever decline and fall. 

From the dead forces stirring the world?;, to the Life-force which dominates all ; 

But the sum of life is the same, and shall be when the world is done, 
As it was when its first faint spark was stirred by the kiss of the sun ;- 

Tf I feel a sure knowledge within, which shall never be blotted out, 
A Longing, a Faith, a Conviction, too strong for a Whisper of Doubt 

That my life shall be hid with a Lord, who shall do the thing that is best — 
To be purged, it may be, long time, or taken at once to rest, — 



132 EVENSONG. 



To live, it may be, myself; from all else, individual, sole, 
Or blended with other lives, or sunk in the Inlinite whole— 

Though I doubt not that that which is I may endure in the ages to be, 
Since I know not what bars hold apart the Not-Me and the mystical Me ;— 

How else than thro' Him do I grasp the faith that for Greek and Jew 
Was hidden, or but dimly seen, which nor Moses nor Sokrates knew ? 

Ay ! He is our Teacher indeed. He is risen, and we shall rise ; 
But if only as we He rose, not the less He lives in the skies. 

And if those who proclaim Him to day in the dim gray lands of the East, 
Prove him not by portent or sign, not by trick or secret of priest ; 

But for old cosmogonies dead, and faint precepts too weak for our need, 
Offer God brought nearer to man in a living and glowing creed. 

The pure teaching, the passionate love, taking thought for the humble and weak, 
The pitiful scorn of wrong, which His Scriptures everywhere speak. 

Not writ for the sage in his cell, but preached 'mid the turmoil and strife, 
And touched with a living brand from the fire of the Altar of Life. 

So, of all the wonders they tell, no wonder our hearts has stirred 

Like the Wonder which Uves with us still in a living and breathing Word. 

More than portents, more than all splendours of rank loyal hearts devise, 
More than visions of heavenly forms caught up and lost in the skies, 

This the crowning miracle shows, before which we must prostrate fall ; 
For this is the living voice of the Lord and Giver of all. 

****** 
Then I ceased again from thought, as I lay on the long grave -grass, 
Thrilled through by a music 6f hymns, and letting the moments pass. 

"Exult and rejoice" ! they sang in high unison, now combined 
Which were warring voices before, the voices of heart and mind. 

The earth was flooded with light, over valley and river and hill, 

And this is the hymn which I heard them sing, while the world lay still : 



*' Exult, oh dust and ashes ! Rejoice, all ye that are dead ! 
For ye live too who lie beneath, as we live who walk overhead. 



EVENSONG. 133 



As God lives, so ye are living ; ye are living and moving to-day, 

Not as they live who breathe and move, yet living and conscious as they. 

And ye too, oh living, exult. Young and old, exult and rejoice ; 

For the Lord of the quick and the dead lives for ever : we hear His voice. 

We have heard His voice, and we hear it sound wider and more increased, 
To the sunset plains of the West from the peaks of the furthest East. 

For the quick and the dead, it was given ; for them it is sounding still, 
And no pause of silence arrests the clear voice of the Infinite Will. 

Not only through Christ long since, and the teachers of ages gone. 
But to-day He speaks, day by day, to those who are toiling on ; 

More clear perhaps then, to the ear, and with nigher voice and more plain. 
But still the same Teacher Divine, speaking to us again and again. 

] 
For I like not his creed, if any there be, who shall dare to hold 
That GoJ comes to us only at times far away in the centuries old. 

Not so ; but He dwells with us still ; and maybe, though I know not indeed, 
He will send us a Christ again, with a fuller and perfecter creed— 

A Christ who shall speak to all men, East and West, and North and South, 
I Till the whole world shall hear and believe the gracious words of His mouth. 

I 

I When knowledge has pierced through the wastes, chaining earth together and sea. 
And the bars of to-day are lost in the union of all that shall be ; 

I And the brotherhood that He loved is more than a saintly thought, 

I And the wars and the strifes which we mourn are lost in the peace He taught ; 

Then Christ coming shall make all things new. Or it may be that ages of pain 
Shall quench the dim light of to-day, bringing back the thick darkness again. 

And then, slow as the tide which flows on though each wave may seem to 

recede, 
Man advances again and again to the Rock of a higher creed. 

rOr it may be no teacher shall come down again with God in his face, 
|But the light which before was reflected from One shall shine on the race. 



^34 



EVENSONG. 



And as this wide earth grows smaller, and men to men nearer draw, 
There may spring from the root of the race the flower of a nobler law, 

Growing fairer, and still more fair ; or maybe, through long ages of lime, 
Man shall rise up from type to type, to the strength of an essence sublime, 

Removed as far in knowledge, in length of life, and in good 

From us, as we from the mollusc which gasped in the first warm flood,— 

A creature so wise and so high that he scorns all allurement of ill. 
Marching on through an ordered life in the strength of a steadfast will. 

Who knows? But, however it be, we live, and shall live indeed. 

In ourselves or in others to come. What more doth our longing need ? 

Hid with God, or on earth, we shall see, burning brighter and yet more bright. 
The sphere of humanity move throughout time on its pathway of light ; 

Circling round with a narrower orbit, as age upon age fleets away, 
The Centre of Force and of Being, the Fountain of Light and of Day, 

Till, nearer drawn, and more near, at last it shall merge and fall 
In its source ; man is swallowed in God, the Part is lost in the All ; 

One more world is recalled to rest, one more star adds its fire to the sun, 
One light less wanders thro' space, and the story of man is done ! "' 

****** 
Then slowly I rose to go from my place on the long grave-grass, 
W^here so long I had lain in deep thought, and letting the moments pass : 

A great light was flooding the plains of the earth and the uttermost sky. 

The low church and the deep-sunk vale, and the place where one day I shall lie, 

The fresh graves of those we have lost, the dark yews with their reverend gloom, 
And the green wave which only marks the place of the nameless tomb ; 

And thro' all the clear spaces above — oh wonder ! oh glory of Light ! — 
Came forth myriads on myriads of worlds, the shining host of the night, — 

The vast forces and fires that know the same sun and centre as we ; 
The faint planets which roll in vast orbits round suns we shall never see ; 

The rays which had sped from the first, with the awful swiftness of light, 
To reach only then, it might be, the confines of mortal sight : 



SONG. 



Oh, wonder of Cosmical Order ! oh, Maker and Ruler of all, 
Before whose Infinite greatness in silence we worship and fall ! 

Could I doubt that the Will which keeps this great Universe steadfast and sure 
Might be less than His creatures thought, full of goodness, pitiful, pure ? 

Could I dream that the Power which keeps those great suns circling around, 
Took no thought for the humblest life which flutters and falls to the ground ? 

" Oh, Faith ! thou art higher than all." Then I turned from the glories above. 
And from every casement new-lit there shone a soft radiance of love : 

Young mothers were teaching their children to fold little hands in prayer ; 
Strong fathers were resting from toil, 'mid the hush of the Sabbath air ; 

Peasant lovers strolled thro' the lanes, shy and diffident, each with each. 
Yet knit by some subtle union too fine for their halting speech : 

Humble lives, to low thought, and low ; but linked, to the thinker's eye, 
By a bond that is stronger than death, with the lights of the ultimate sky : 

Here as there, the great drama of life rolled on, and a jubilant voice 
Thrilled through me ineffable, vast, and bade me exult and rejoice ; 

Exult and rejoice, oh soul ! sang my being to a mystical hymn 

As I passed by the cool bright wolds, as I threaded my pinewoods dim ; 

Rejoice and be sure ! as I passed to my fair home under the hill, 

Wrapt round with a happy content,— and the world and my soul were still ! 



SONG. 

Beam on me, fair Ideal, beam on me ! 
Too long thou hast concealed thee in 

a cloud ; 
Mine is no vision strong to pierce to 

thee. 
Nor voice complaining loud, 
Whereby thou mightest find thy dear, 

and come 
To thine own heart, and long-expecting 

home. 



Too long thou dost withdraw thee from 

mine eyes ; 
Too long thou lingerest. Ah, truant 

sweet ! 
Dost thou no reckoning take of all my 

sighs. 
While Time with flying feet 
Speeds onward, till the westering sun 

sinks low — 
With cruel feet so swift and yet so 

slow ? 



136 



AT LAST. 



Time was I tliought that thou wouldst 

come a maid 
White-armed, with deep blue eyes 

and sunny head ; 
But, ah ! too long the lovely vision 

stayed. 
And then, when this was fled. 
Fame, with blown clarion clear, and 

wide-spread wings, 
Fame, crown and summit of created 

things. 

And then in guise of Truth, when this 
grew faint. 
Truth in Belief and Act, and Life 
and Thought, 
White-robed and virginal, a pure cold 
saint. 
Thou cam'st awhile, long sought ; 
But only in glimpses earnest thou, so I 
Watch wearily until thou passest by. 

I wait, I watch, I hunger, though I 

know 
Thou wilt not come at all who stay'st 

so long. 
My hope has lost its strength, my heart 

its glow ; 
I grow too cold for song : 
Long since I might have sung, hadst thou 

come then, 
A song to echo through the souls of men. 

Yet, since 'tis better far to dream in 

sleep, 
Than wholly lose the treacheries of 

time, 
I hold it gain to have seen thy garments 

sweep 
On the far hills sublime : 
Still will I hope thy glorious face to 

see, — 
Beam on me, fair Ideal, beam on me ! 



AT LAST. 

Let me at last be laid 

On that hillside I know which scans 

the vale. 
Beneath the thick yews' shade, 
For shelter when the rains and winds 

prevail. 
It cannot be the eye 
Is blinded when we die, 
So that we know no more at all 
The dawns increase, the evenings fall ; 
Shut up within a mouldering chest of 

wood 
Asleep, and careless of our children's 

good. 

Shall I not feel the spring. 

The yearly resurrection of the earth, 

Stir thro' each sleeping thing 

With the fair throbbings and alarms of 

birth, 
Calling at its own hour 
On folded leaf and flower. 
Calling the lamb, the lark, the bee. 
Calling the crocus and anemone. 
Calling new lustre to the maiden's eye, 
And to the youth love and ambition 

high ? ' 

Shall I no more admire 

The winding river kiss the daisied plain ? 

Nor see the dawn's cold fire 

Steal downward from the rosy hills 

again ? 
Nor watch the frowning cloud. 
Sublime with mutterings loud. 
Burst on the vale, nor eves of gold, 
Nor crescent moons, nor starlights cold, 
Nor the red casements glimmer on the 

hill 
At Yule-tides, when the frozen leas 

are still ? 



SONG. 



137 



Or should my children's tread 
Through Sabbath twilights, when the 

hymns are done, 
Come softly overhead, 
Shall no sweet quickening through 

my bosom run, 
Till all my soul exhale 
Into the primrose pale, 
And every flower which springs above 
Breathes a new perfume from my love ; 
And I shall throb, and stir, and thrill 

beneath 
With a pure passion stronger far than 

death ? 

Sweet thought ! fair, gracious dream. 
Too fair and fleeting for our clearer 

view ! 
How should our reason deem 
That those dear souls, who sleep 

beneath the blue 
In rayless caverns dim, 
'Mid ocean monsters grim, 
Or whitening on the trackless sand. 
Or with strange corpses on each hand 
[n battle- trench or city graveyard lie. 
Break not their prison-bonds till time 

shall die ? 



'Vay, 'tis not so indeed. 

pVith the last fluttering of the failing 

I breath 

i The clay-cold form doth breed 

I V viewless essence, far too fine for 

i death ; 

I Ind ere one voice can mourn, 

')n upward pinions borne. 

They are hidden, they are hidden, in 
some thin air, 

""ar from corruption, far from care, 

Vhere through a veil they view their 
former scene, 

)nly a little touched by what has been. 



Touched but a little ; and yet. 
Conscious of every change that doth 

befal, 
By constant change beset. 
The creatures of this tiny whirling 

ball, 
Filled with a higher being. 
Dowered with a clearer seeing, 
Risen to a vaster scheme of life, 
To wider joys and nobler strife. 
Viewing our little human hopes and 

fears 
As we our children's fleeting smiles and 

tears. 

Then, whether with fire they burn 
This dwelling-house of mine when I am 

fled, 
And in a marble urn 
My ashes rest by my beloved dead, 
Or in the sweet cold earth 
I pass from death to birth. 
And pay kind Nature's life-long debt 
In heart's-ease and in violet — 
In charnel-yard or hidden ocean wave, 
Where'er I lie, I shall not scorn my 

grave. 



SONG. 

I-OVE-siGHS that are sighed and spent 

in vain, 
Ah ! folly, folly, 
Thou dost transmute into a precious 

pain. 
Sweet melancholy. 
Ah ! folly, folly, 
Ah ! fair melancholy, 
Sweeter by far thy mild remedial pain, 
Than if fierce hope should rise and 

throb again. 



THE DIALOGUE — THE BIRTH OF VERSE. 



High hopes of glory sunk to naught, 


" For thou wilt stand in the East, 


Ah ! folly, folly, 


The night withdrawn, 


And deep perplexities of baffled thought 


White-robed as is a priest, 


Thou healest, melancholy. 


At the door of dawn ; 


Ah ! folly, folly, 


While I within the ground. 


Ah ! sweet melancholy, 


In misery fast bound, 


Thou dost bear with thee a balm un- 


Shall lie, blind, deaf, and foul. 


sought. 


Since thou art fled, soul." 


To heal the wounds of love and pride 




and thought. 


Then said my soul to me : 




''Thy lot is best; 


Yet thou art a trivial cure for ill, 


For thou shalt tranquil be, 


Pale melancholy. 


Sunk deep in rest. 


Fitting best a feebler brain and will, 


While naked I shall know 


Ah ! folly, folly, 


The intolerable glow 


Ay, sweet melancholy. 


When as, the sun, shall rise 


Folly art thou, folly. 


A fire in fiery skies. 


"Who only may not trivial ills endure 




Will to thy pharmacy entrust his cure. 


"Thou shalt lie cool and dark, 




Forgetting all ; 


Since thou shalt not heal the wounds I 


I shall float shamed and stark, 


know. 


Till the sun fall : 


Pale melancholy, 


Thou shalt be earth in earth, 


I will seek if any comfort grow 


Preparing for new birth ; 


In jovial folly, 


While me in the heaven fierce, 


Ah ! folly, folly, 


Pure glories fright and pierce," 


Worse than melancholy, 




No other cure there is for Fortune's 


Then said I to my soul. 


smart 


And she to me : 


Than a soul self-contained, and a proud 


" Where'er life's current roll 


innocent heart ! 


We twain shall be, 




Part here and part not here. 




Partners in hope and fear. 




Until, our exile done, i 


THE DIALOGUE. 


We meet at last in one." 


Unto my soul I said. 




" Oh, vagrant soul ! 


THE BIRTH OF VERSE. 


When o'er my living head 




A few years roll. 


Blind thoughts which occupy the 


Is't true that thou shalt fly 


brain. 


Far away into the sky. 


Dumb melodies which fill the ear, 


Leaving me in my place 


Dim perturbations, precious pain. 


Alone with my disgrace ? 


A gleam of hope, a chill of fear, — 



SONG — THE ENIGMA. 



139 



These seize the poet's soul, and mould 
The ore of fancy into gold. 

And first no definite thought there is 
In all that affluence of sound, 

Like those sweet formless melodies 
Piped to the listening woods around, 

l]y birds which never teacher had 

Bat love and knowledge : they are glad. 

Till, when the chambers of the soul 
Are filled with inarticulate airs, 

A spirit comes which doth control 
The music, and its end prepares ; 

And, with a power serene and strong, 

Shapes these wild melodies to song. 

Or haply, thoughts which glow and 
burn 

Await long time the fitting strain, 
Which, swiftly swelling, seems to turn 

The silence to a load of pain ; 
x\nd somewhat in him seems to cry, 

*' I will have utterance, or I die ! " 

Then of a sudden, full, complete, 
The strong strain bursting into sound. 

Words come with rhythmic rush of feet, 
Fit music girds the language round, 

And with a comeliness unsought. 

Appears the winged, embodied thought. 

But howsoever they may rise. 

Fit words and music come to birth ; 

There soars an angel to the skies. 
There walks a Presence on the earth — 

A something which shall yet inspire 
Myriads of souls unborn with fire. 

And when his voice is hushed and 
dumb, 
The flame burnt out, the glory dead. 



He feels a thrill of wonder come 

At that which his poor tongue has 
said ; 
And thinks of each diviner line — 
" Only the hand that wrote was mine." 



SONG. 

Oh ! were I rich and mighty, 
With store of gems and gold, 
x\nd you, a beggar at my gate. 
Lay starving in the cold ; 
I wonder, could I bear 
To leave you pining there ? 

Or, if I were an angel , 
And you an earth-born thing. 
Beseeching me to touch you 
In rising with my wing ; 
I wonder should I soar 
Aloft, nor heed you more ? 

Or, dear, if I were only 

A maiden cold and sweet, 

And you, a humble lover, 

Sighed vainly at my feet ; 

I wonder if my heart 

W^ould know no pain or smart ? 



THE ENIGMA. 

The gaslights flutter and flare 

On the cruel stones of the street. 
And beneath in the sordid glare 

Pace legions of weary feet ; 
Fair faces that soon shall grow hard, 

Shy glances already grown bold. 
The wrecks of a girlhood marred 

r>y shame and hunger and cold. 



40 



THE ENIGMA. 



But here, as she passes along, 

Is one whose young cheek still shows, 
'Mid the pallid, pitiful throng. 

The fresh bloom of a tender rose. 
Not long has she walked with vice, 

A recruit to the army of 111, 
A fresh lamb for the sacrifice 

That steams up to Moloch still. 

And the spell through which youth 
draws all, 

The faint shyness in hurrying walk, 
The lithe form slender and tall. 

The soft burr in her simple talk, 
Constrains the grave passer, whose brain 

Is long leagues of fancy apart, 
To thrill with a sudden pain 

And an emptiness of heart. 

Poor child ! since it is not long 

Since you were indeed but a child, 
A gay thing of bird-like song, 

And even as a bird is wild ; 
With no shadow of thought or care, 

Laughing all the sweet hours away. 
When every morning was fair. 

And every season a May. 

Through the red fallow on the hill 

The white team laboured along, 
While you roamed the green copses at 
will. 

And mimicked the cuckoo's song ; 
While they tossed and carried the hay, 

While the reapers were hid in the 
wheat, 
You had only to laugh and to play. 

Or to bathe in the brook your feet. 

For your mother left you a child, 
Your rough father's pride and joy : 

Rejoiced that his girl was as wild 
And fearless as any boy. 



Though you would not plunder the 
nest, 
Nor harry the shrieking hare. 
You could gallop bare-backed with the 
best, 
And knew where the orchises were. 

" Like a boy" was what they said, 

With your straight limbs and fearless 
face ; 
Like a girl in the golden head. 

Gay fancies, and nameless grace. 
Like a boy in high courage and all 

Quick forces, and daring of will ; 
Like a girl in the peril to fall, 

And innocent blindness to ill. 

And even now, on the sordid street. 
As you pass by the theatre door. 
You 1) ing with you some freshness 
sweet 
Of the brightness and breezes of 
yore. 
Not yet are the frank eyes grown bold, 
Not yet have they lost all their joy ; 
Not yet has time taken the gold 

From the short crisp curls of the 
boy. 

And if truly a boy's they were. 

Not thus would he pace forlorn ; 
Nor would careless passers-by dare 

To shoot out the lips of scorn. 
Is it Nature or man that makes 

An unequal judgment arraign 
Those whose equal nature takes 

The mark of the self-same stain ? 

Leaving this one, shame and disgrace ; 

Leaving that one, honour and fame ; 
To this one, confusion of face, 

To that one, a stainless name : 



10 THE TORMENTORS. 



HI 



A high port and respect and wealth 
For the one who is guilty indeed, 

While the innocent walks by stealth 
Through rough places with feet that 
bleed. 

Do I touch a deep ulcer of Time, 

A created or ultimate ill, 
A primal curse or a crime. 

Self-inflicted through ignorance still ? 
But meanwhile, poor truant, you come 

With a new face year after year, 
Leaving innocence, freedom, and home 

For these dens of weeping and fear. 

To decline by a swift decay, 

To a thing so low and forlorn. 
That, for all your fresh beauty to-day, 

It were better you never were born ; 
Or to find in some rare-sent hour, 

As a lily rooted in mire. 
Love spring with its pure white flower 

From the lowest depths of desire. 

Heaven pity you ! So little turns 

The stream of our lives from the 
right ; 
So like is the flame that burns 

To the hearth that gives warmth and 
light ; 
So fine the impassable fence. 

Set for ever 'twixt right and wrong, 
Between white lives of innocence 

And dark lives too dreadful for song. 



TO THE TORMENTORS. 

Dear little friend, who, day by day. 
Before the door of home 
Art ready waiting till thy master come, 
With monitory paw and noise, 
Swelling to half delirious joys, 



Whether my path I take 
By leafy coverts known to thee before, 
Where the gay coney loves to play. 
Or the loud pheasant whirls from out 

the brake 
Unharmed by us, save for some frolic 

chase. 
Or innocent panting race ; 
Or who, if by the sunny river's side 
Haply my steps I turn, 
With loud petition constantly dost 

yearn 
To fetch the whirling stake from the 

warm tide ; 
Who, if I chide thee, grovellest in the 

dust, 
And dost forgive me, though I am 

unjust, 
Blessing the hand that smote : who 

with fond love 
Gazest, and fear for me, such as doth 

move 
Those finer souls which know, yet may 

not see, 
And are wrapped round and lost in 

ecstasy ; — 

And thou, dear little friend and soft, 
Breathing a gentle air of hearth and 

home ; 
Whose low purr to the lonely ear doth 

oft 
With deep refreshment come ; 
Though thy quick nature is not frank 

and gay 
As that one's, yet with graceful play 
Thou dost beguile the evenings, and 

dost sit 
With mien demurely fit ; 
With half-closed eyes, as in a dream 
Responsive to the singing steam, 
Most delicately clean and white, 
Thou baskest in the flickering light ; 



142 



TO THE TORMENTORS. 



Quick-tempered art thou, and yet, if a 

child 
Molest thee, pitiful and mild ; 
And always thy delight is, simitly 

neat, 
To seat thee faithful at thy master's 

feet ;— 

And thou, good friend and strong, 
Who art the docile labourer of the 

world ; 
Who groanest when the battle mists are 

curled 
On the red plain ; who toilest all day 

long 
To make our gain or sport ; who art 

the care 
That cleanses idle lives, which, Init for 

thee 
And thy pure, noble nature, perhaps 

might sink 
To lower levels, born of lust and 

drink, 
And half-forgotten sloughs of infamy, 
Which desperate souls could dare ; — 
And ye, fair timid things, who lightly 

play 
By summer woodlands at the close of 

day ;— 
What are ye all, dear creatures, tame 

or wild ? 
What other nature yours tlian of a 

child. 
Whose dumbness finds a voice mighty 

to call, 
In wordless pity, to the souls of all 
Whose lives I turn to profit, and whose 

mute 
And constant friendship links the man 

and brute ? 
Shall I consent to raise 
A torturing hand against your few and 

evil days ? 



Shall I indeed delight 

To take you, helpless kinsmen, fast and 

bound, 
And while ye lick my hand 
Lay bare your veins and nerves in one 

red wound, 
Divide the sentient brain ; 
And v/hile the raw flesh quivers with 

the pain, 
A calm observer stand, 
And drop in some keen acid, and watch 

it bite 
The writhing life : wrench the still 

beating heart. 
And with calm voice meanwhile dis- 
course, and bland. 
To boys who jeer or sicken as they 

gaze. 
Of the great Goddess Science and her 

gracious ways ? 



Great Heaven ! this shall not be, this 

present hell, 
And none denounce it ; well I know, 

too well. 
That Nature works by ruin and by 

wrong, 
Taking no care for any but the 

strong, 
Taking no care. But we are more than 

she ; 
We touch to higher levels, a higher 

love 
Doth through our being move : 
Though we know all our benefits bought 

by blood, 
And that by suffering only reach we 

good ; 
Yet not with mocking laughter, nor in 

play. 
Shall we give death or carve a life 

away. 



CHILDREN OF THE STREET. 



M3 



And if it be indeed 

For some vast gain of knowledge, we 

might give 
These humble lives that live. 
And for the race should bid the viclim 

bleed, 
Only for some great gain, 
Some counterpoise of pain ; 
And that with solemn soul and grave, 
Like his who from the fire 'scapes, or 

the flood. 
Who would save all, ay, with his heart's 

best blood. 
But ofhis children chooses which to save! 

Surely a man should scorn 

To owe his weal to otliers' death and 

]Dain? 
Sure 'twere no real gain 
To batten on lives so weak and so 

' forlorn ? 
Nor were it right indeed 
To do for others what for self were 

wrong. 
'Tis but the same dead creed, 
Preaching the naked triumph of the 

strong ; 
And for this Goddess Science, hard and 

stern. 
We shall not let her priests torment and 

burn : 
We fought the priests before, and not 

in vain ; 
And as we fought before, so will we 

light again. 



CHILDREN OF THE STREET, 

Bright boys vociferous, 
Girl-children clamorous. 
Shrill trebles echoing, 
Down the long street ; 



Every day come they there. 
Afternoon foul or fair. 
Shouting and volleying ; 
Through wintry winds and cold, 
Through summer eves of gold. 
Running and clamouring : 
Never a day but brings, 
Ragged and thinly clad, 
Battling with poverty, 
Hunger, and wretchedness, 
Brave little souls forlorn, 
Gainiiig hard bread. 
*' Terrible accident ; 
Frightful explosion, Sir ; 
News from Australia, 
News from America ; 
Only one halfpenny, 
Special edition. Sir, 
Echo, Sir, Echo I '^ 

Thus they shout breathlessly, 
Dashing and hurrying, 
Threading the carriages, 
Under the rapid feet ; 
Frightening the passer-by, 
Down the long street : 
On till they chance to meet 
Some vague philosopher, 
* * * 

And straightway the hurry. 
And bustle, and noise, 
Fade away in his thought 
Before tranquiller joys. 
Here are problems indeed. 
Not to solve, it is true. 
But on every side filling 
The fanciful view ; 
Which ere he has grasped them 
Are vanished and gone. 
But leave him in solitude 
Never alone : 

Thoughts of Fate, and of Life, 
And the end of it all. 



[44 



CHILDREN OF THE STREET. 



Of the struggle and strife 

Where few rise, many fall ; 

Thoughts of Counti-y and Empire, 

Of Future and Past, 

And the centuries gliding 

So slow, yet so fast : 

Old fancies, yet strange, 

Thoughts sad and yet sweet, 

Of lives come to harvest, 

And lives incomplete ; 

Of the lingering march. 

Of the Infinite plan. 

Bringing slowly, yet surely. 

The glory of man ; 

Of our failures and losses, 

Our victory and gain ; 

Of our treasure of hope 

And our Present of pain. 

And, higher than all, 

That these young voices teach 

A glowing conviction 

Too precious for speech ; 

That somewhere down deep 

In each natural soul 

Sacred verities sleep, 

Holy waterfloods roll ; 

That to young lives untaught. 

Without friend, without home, 

Some gleams of a light 

That is heavenlier come ; 

That to toil which is honest 

A voice calls them still, 

Which is more than the tempter's 

And stronger than ill. 

For, poor souls, 'twere better. 
If pleasure were all. 
Not to strive thus and labour. 
But let themselves fall ; 
They might gain, for a time. 
Higher wages than this, 
And that sharp zest of sinning 
The innocent miss : 



They might know fuller life, 

And, should fortune befriend, 

Escape the Law's pains 

F'rom beginning to end ; 

Or, if they should fail, 

What for them does home bring 

Which should make of a prison 

So dreadful a thing ? 

These children, whom formalists, 

Narrow and stern, 

Have denied what high principle 

Comes from to learn ; 

To whom this great empire. 

Whose records they cry, 

Is a book sealed as close 

As the ages gone by ; 

Who bear a name great 

Among nations of earth, 

But are English alone 

By the fortune of birth ; 

These young mouths that come 

To a board well-nigh bare. 

Who elsewhere were riches, 

But here a grave care. 

Great Empire ! fast bound 

By invisible bands, 

That convey to earth's limits 

Thy rulers' commands ; 

Who sittest alone 

By thy rude northern sea, 

On an ocean-built throne. 

The first home of the free. 

Whom thy tall chimneys shroud 

In a life-giving gloom ; 

Who clothest mankind 

With the work of thy loom ; 

Who o'er all seas dost send out 

Thy deep-laden ships ; 

Who teachest all nations 

The words of thy lips ; 

Who despatchest thy viceroys 

Imperially forth 



CHILDREN OF THE STREET. 



145 



To the palms of thy East 


Till, with poor minds still childish, 


And the snows of thy North ; 


These children are grown 


"Who governest millions 


To the age that shall give them 


Of dark subtle men 


Young lives of their own ; 


By the might of just laws 


Think of those, who to-day 


And the sword of the pen ; 


In the sweet country air 


Who art planted wherever 


Live, as soulless, almost, 


A white foot may tread, 


As the birds which they scare ; 


On the poisonous land 


Think of all those for whom, 


Which for ages lies dead ; 


To the immature brain, 


Who didst nourish the freeman 


The dull whirr of the loom 


With milk from thy breast, 


Brings a throbbing of pain ; 


To the measureless Commonwealth 


Think of countless lives fallen. 


Lording the West ; 


Sunk, never to rise, 


Who boldest to-day 


For the lack of the warning 


Of those once subject lands 


Their country denies, — 


A remnant too mighty 


Fallen, ruined, and lost, 


For weaklier hands ; 


Through all time that shall be. 


Who in thy isle-continent, 


Fallen for ever and lost 


Yearly increased, 


To themselves and to thee ; — 


Rearest empires of freemen 


Thou who standest, girt round 


To sway the far East ; 


By strong foes on each side, 


Who art set on lone islets 


Foes who envy thy greatness, 


Of palm and of spice, 


Thy glory, thy pride ; 


On deserts of sand 


Thou, who surely shalt need 


And on mountains of ice ; 


Heart and soul, brain and hand. 


Who bring'st Freedom wherever 


Brain to plan, hand to bleed, 


Thy flag is unfurled : 


For thy might, O dear land ! 


The exemplar, the envy. 




The crown of the World ! 


* * * * 


What is't thou dost owe 


Till, while slowly he ponders 


To these young lives of thine, 


These thoughts in his brain. 


What else but to foster 


See I there swiftly comes rushing 


This dim spark divine ? 


A young troop again. 


Think of myriads like these. 




Without teaching or home, 




Who with pitiful accents 


"Terrible accident; 


Beseeching thee come ; 


Frightful explosion. Sir ; 


Think how Time, whirling on. 


News, Sir, from Germany ; 



Time that never may rest, 
Brings the strength of the loins 
And the curve of the breast, 



Latest from India ; 
Special edition, Sir, 
Only one half-penny 



146 



SOULS IN prison: 



Thus the levoluble 
Assonant Echo. 

Again they rush breathlessly 
Dashing and hurrying, 
Frighting the passer-by, 
Shouting and volleying. 
Bright boys vociferous, 
Girl-children clamorous, 
On till they meet again 
Some vague philosopher. 



SOULS IN PRISON. 

I THOUGHT that I looked on the land 

of the lost, 
A stony desert, arid and bare, 
Gray under a heavy air. 

Not a bird was there, nor a flower, nor 

a tree, 
Nor rushing river, nor sounding sea ; 
And I seemed to myself like a ghost. 

A land of shadows, a herbless plain, . 
A faint light aslant on the barren 

ground, 
And never a sight nor a sound : 

Only at times, of invisible feet. 
Wearily tracking one dull, sad beat. 
Too spiritless to complain ; 

And of faces hid by a blank white mask, 
From which there glared out cavernous 

eyes, 
Full of hate and revolt and lies : 

As if the green earth on which others 

live 
Had nothing of hope or of fear to give 
But a hopeless, perpetual task. 



Far in the distance a vast gray pile 
Stretched out its spider-like, echoing 

ways 
In long centrifugal rays ; 

And sometimes dimly I seemed to see 
Dumb gangs of poor workers, fruitless'" 
Bent in hard tasks useless and vile, 

To which, issuing silent, in single rank, 
Along narrow pathways stony and blank 
The hopeless toilers would come. 

Or else each was idly cooped in a cell 
NarroWj and gloomy, and hard, as hell, 
Which was all that they knew of home. 

And around them frowning, grimy and 

tall. 
With no ivy or lichen, a circling wall 
Shut God and life utterly out ; 

And in the midst, with unclosing eye, 
A muffled watcher stood silently, 
As they paced about and about. 

Never alone — for, wherever they went, 
From some central tower an eye was 

bent 
Along all the long, straight-drawn 

ways. 

Never alone — for an unseen eye, 

As the stealthy footstep went noiselessly 

by, 

Swept each lonely cell with its gaze. 

Always alone — for in all the throng 
No word or glance as they shuffled 

along 
But the order-word, sharp and loud. 



A SEPARATION DEED. 



147 



Always alone — for in all the crowd 
No glance of comfort from pitying eyes 
Might pierce through the thick disguise. 

Nor, if husband were there, or child, or 

wife, 
Could the subtle communion of love 

and life 
Escape that terrible eye. 

Yet husbands and wives and children 

there were. 
Young limbs, and age bent in a dumb 

despair, 
Too strong or too weak to die. 

Nothing remained, as it seemed, but 

thought 
Of the old hopes vanished and come to 

nought, 
And the hopeless, perpetual care, — 

Nought but to sit, as the night would 

fall, 
Tracing black ghosts on the blank 

white wall 
In a silent rage of despair ; 

Or, before the dull daylight began to 

break, 
To start at the iron-tongued summons 

and wake 
To the curse of another day. 

And so, in silence, to brood and plot 
To regain the poor freedom and life 

which were not, 
Though it bartered a soul away ; 

Or, later, to cherish the old offence 
^Vith a secret lurking devil of sense. 
And a spring of desire self-bent, 



Till at last all longing was sunk and 
spent 

In a lifeless, fathomless slough o^ con- 
tent. 

Not repentance, nor fear, nor grief, 

Nor beUef at all, nor yet unbelief ; 
But a soul which skulks from itself like 

a thief, 
And is damned for ever and dead. 
» * * * 

Thus I thought to myself; and, though 

straight I saw 
It Avas only the house of retributive 

Law, 
I shuddered and shrank, and fled. 



A SEPARA TlOiV DEED. 

Whereas we twain, who still are 

bound for life, 
Who took each other for better and for 

worse, 
Are now plunged deep in hate and bitter 

strife, 
And all our former love is grown a 

curse ; 
So that 'twere better, doubtless, we 

should be 
In loneliness, so that we were apart, 
Nor in each other's changed eyes look- 
ing, see 
The cold reflection of an alien heart : 
To this insensate parchment we reveal 
Our joint despair, and seal it with our 

seal. 

Forgetting the dear days not long ago, 
When we walked slow by starlight 

through the corn : 
Forgetting, since our hard fate wills 

it so, 



148 



A SEPARATION DEED. 



All but our parted lives and souls 

forlorn ; 
Forgetting the sweet fetters strong to 

bind 
Which childish fingers forge and baby 

smiles, 
Our common pride to watch the gro\\- 

ing mind, 
Our common joy in childhood's simple 

wiles. 
The common tears we shed, the kiss 

we gave. 
Standing beside the open little grave ; 

Forgetting these and more, if to forget 
Be possible, as we would fain indeed. 
And if the past be not too deeply set 
In our two hearts, with roots that, 

touched, will bleed 
Yet, could we cheat by any pretext fair 
The world, if not ourselves — 'twere so 

far well — 
We would not put our bonds from us, 

and bare 
To careless eyes the secrets of our hell ; 
So this indenture witnesseth that we, 
As follows here, do solemnly agree. 

We will take each our own, and will 

abide 
Separate from bed and board for all 

our life ; 
Whatever chance of weal or woe betide. 
Naught shall re-knit the husband and 

the wife. 
Though one grow gradually poor and 

weak, 
The other, lapt in luxury, will not 

heed ; 
Though one, in mortal pain, the other 

seek, 
The other may not answer to the need ; 



We, who through long years did 'to- 
gether rest 

In wedlock, heart to heart, and breast 
to breast. 

One shall the daughter take, and one 

the boy, — 
Poor boy, who shall not hear his 

mother's name, 
Nor feel her kiss ; poor girl, for whom 

the joy 
Of her sire's smile is changed for sullen 

shame : 
Brother and sister, who, if they should 

meet, 
\Vith faces strange, amid the careless 

crowd, 
AVill feel their hearts beat with no 

quicker beat. 
Nor inward voice of kinship calling 

loud : 
Two widowed lives, whose fulness may 

not come ; 
Two orphan lives, knowing but half of 

home. 

We have not told the tale, nor will, 

indeed, 
Of dissonance, whether cruel wrong or 

crime. 
Or sum of petty injuries which breed 
The hate of hell when multiplied by 

time. 
Dishonour, falsehood, jealous fancies, 

blows, 
Which in one moment wedded souls 

can sunder ; 
But, since our yoke intolerable grows, 
Therefore we set our seals and souls as 

under : 
Witness the powers of W^rong and 

Hate and Death. 
And this Indenture also witnesseth. 



SONG — FREDERIC. 



149 





Then a sudden revolt and rebellion 


SONG. 


Assail me and fetter my heart, 


They mount from glory to glory, 


As he went on with boyish prattle, 


They sink from deep unto deep, 


Before I had courage to speak : 


They proclaim their sweet passionate 


"He died of consumption, they said, 


story, 


Sir; 


They tremble on chords that weep, 


And he earned sixteen shillings a 


And with them my soul spreads her 


week." 


wings. 




And my heart goes out to them and 


" How old was he ? " " Just seventeen, 


sings. 


Sir: 




He had grown very tall and white." 


And chord within chord interlaces, 


And I thought of the childish features. 


Like the leaves that protect some 


The bright cheeks, and eyes still more 


fair bloom ; 


bright, 


And with subtle and tremulous graces, 




And tender lights dappled with 


When, withdrawn from his school far 


gloom. 


too early. 


Like the fall of an ocean-borne bell, 


He came with his treasured prize, 


The harmonies quicken and swell. 


To show to his new-found master, 




With a simple pride in his eyes ; 


Then swift from those languishing voices 




And accents which marry and die, 


And how it soon proved that his writing 


Like the sound of a trumpet, rejoices 


Was so clear, and skilful, and fine, 


One clear note unfaltering, high, 


That I set him the task to decipher 


And my soul, through its magical power, 


The hieroglyphs which are mine. 


Bursts and dies like an aloe in flower. 






'Twas four years ago, and so splendid 




Did my first book of songs appear. 


FREDERIC. 


That, though ofttimes already rejected. 




I sent them forth then without fear. 


As these sheets came in from the 




printer, 


Nor in vain. For now many minds 


My lad who had brought me them 


know them, 


said. 


And many are kindly in praise. 


" Please, Sir, as I passed his office. 


But the cold little hand that adorned 


They told me that Frederic was 


them 


dead." 


Has cast up the sum of its days ! 


And I knew in a moment thrill through 


Sixteen shillings ! this pittance could 


me, 


purchase 


A keen little sorrow and smart, 


The flower of those boyish years ! 



ISO 



TO MY MOTHERLAND. 



This could give to that humble ambition 
Dull entries, whose total is tears ! 

Poor young life which was bursting to 
blossom, 
Which had borne its own fruitage 
one day. 
Had those budding years mingled 
together 
Slow labour with healthfuller play ! 

Is it man that has done this, or rather, 
These dead blasts that blow, blow, 
blow, blow. 
Week by week, month by month, till 
beneath them 
Life withers and pulses beat slow? 

The dull winds that to-day are slaying 
Young and old with their poisonous 
breath. 
Which slew the rash singer who praised 
them, 
Not the less with a premature death. 

Is it man with bad laws and fools' 

customs, 

False pride, poverty, ignorant greed ? 

Is it God making lives for His pleasure, 

'Dooms these innocent victims to 

bleed ? 

Great riddle which one day shall be 
clearer, 
Be our doubts with all reverence 
said ; 
But a strong power constrained me to 
Avrite them, 
When I heard little Frederic was 
dead. 



TO MY MOTHERLAND. 

Dear motherland, forgive me, if too 

long 
I hold the halting tribute of my song ; 
Letting my wayward fancy idly roam 
Far, far from thee, my early home. 
There are some things too near. 
Too infinitely dear 

For speech ; the old ancestral hearth, 
The hills, the vales that saw our birth. 
Are hallowed deep within the reverent 

breast : 
And who of these keeps silence, he is 

best. 

Yet would not I appear. 

Who have known many a brighter land 

and sea 
Since first my boyish footsteps went 

from thee. 
The less to hold thee dear ; 
Or lose in newer beauties the immense 
First love for thee, O birth-land, which 

fulfils 
My inmost heart and soul, — 
Love for thy smiling and sequestered 

vales. 
Love for thy winding streams which 

sparkling roll 
Through thy rich fields, dear Wales, 
From long perspectives of thy folded 

hills. 

Ay ! these are sacred, all ; 

I cannot sing of them, too near they are. 

What if from out thy dark yews, gazing 

far, 
I sat and sang, Llangunnor ! of the 

vale 
Through which fair Towy winds her 

lingering fall, 



TO MY MOTHERLAND. 



151 



Gliding by Dynevor's wood-crowned 

steep, 
And, alternating swift with deep. 
By park and tower a living thing 
Of loveliness meandering ; 
And traced her flowing, onward still. 
By Grongar dear to rhyme, or Drys- 

llvvyn's castled hill, 
Till the fresh upward tides prevail, 
Which stay her stream and bring the 

sea-borne sail, 
And the broad river rolls majestic down 
Beneath the gray walls of my native 

town. 

Would not my fancy quickly stray 

To thee, sea-girt St. David's, far away, 

A minster on the deep ; or, further 

still. 
To you, grand mountains, which the 

stranger knows : 
Eryri throned amid the clouds and 

snows, 
The dark lakes, the wild passes of the 

north ; 
Or Cader, a stern sentinel looking forth 
Over the boisterous main ; or thee, 

dear Isle 
Not lovely, yet which canst my thought 

beguile — 
Mona, from whose fresh wind-sv.'ept 

pastures came 
My grandsire, bard and patriot, like in 

name 
Whose verse his countrymen still love 

to sing 
At bidding-feast or rustic junketing ? 

Ah, no ! too near for song, and ye too 
near. 



My brethren of the ancient race and 

tongue ; 
The bardic measures deep, the sweet 

songs sung 
At congresses, which fan the sacred fire 
Which did of old your ancestors inspire; 
The simple worship sternly pure, 
The faith unquestioning and sure. 
Which doth the priest despise and his 

dark ways, 
And riseth best to fullest praise 
Beneath some humble roof-tree, rude 

and bare, 
Or through the mountains' unpolluted 

air ; 
Who know not violence nor blood, 
And who, if sometimes ye decline from 

good. 
Sin the soft sins which gentler spirits 

move, 
Which warmer Fancy breeds, and too 

much love. 



I may not sing of you. 

Or tell my love — others there are who 

will, 
Who haply bear not yet a love so true 
As that my soul doth fill — 
If to applause it lead, or gain, or fame ; 
Better than this it were to bear the 

pain 
Which comes to higher spirits when 

they know 
They fire in other souls no answering 

glow ; 
Love those who love me not again, 
And leave my country naught, not even 

a name. 



THE EPIC OF HADES. 



BOOK I. 

TARTARUS. 



In February, when the dawn was slow, 
And winds lay still, I gazed upon the 

fields 
Which stretched before me, lifeless, 

and the stream 
Which laboured in the distance to the 

sea, 
Sullen and cold. No force of fancy 

took 
My thought to bloomy June, when all 

the land 
Lay deep in crested grass, and through 

the dew 
The landrail brushed, and the lush 

banks were lit 
With strawberries, and the hot noise 

of bees 
Wooed the chaste flowers. Rather I 

seemed to move 
Thro' that weird land, Hellenic fancy 

feigned, 
Beyond the fabled river and the bark 
Of Charon ; and forthwith on every side 
Rose the thin throng of ghosts. 

First thro' the gloom 
Of a dark grove I strayed — a sluggish 

wood, 
Where scarce the faint fires of the 

setting stars. 
Or some cold gleam of half-discovered 

dawn. 



Might pierce the darkling pines. A 

twilight drear 
Brooded o'er all the depths, and filled 

the dank 
And sunken hollows of the rocks with 

shapes 
Of terror, — beckoning hands and noise- 
less feet 
Flitting from shade to shade, wide eyes 

that stared 
With horror, and dumb mouths which 

seemed to cry. 
Yet cried not. An ineffable despair 
Hung over them and that dark world 

and took 
The gazer captive, and a mingled pang 
Of grief and anger, grown to fierce 

revolt 
And hatred of the Invisible Force 

which holds 
The issue of our lives and binds us fast 
Within the net of Fate ; as the fisher 

takes 
The little quivering sea-things from the 

sea 
And flings them gasping on the beach 

to die 
Then spreads his net for more. And 

then again 
I knew myself and those, creatures who 

lie 



TANTALUS. 



153 



Safe in the strong grasp of Unchanging 


The touch of human hand, but broods 


Law, 


a ghost, 


Encompassed round by hands unseen, 


Hating the bare blank cell— the other 


and chains 


self. 


Which do support the feeble life that 


Which brought it thither— hating man 


else 


and God, 


Were spent on barren space ; and thus 


And all that is or has been. 


I came 




To look with less of horror, more of 




thought. 




And bore to see the sight of pain that 




yet 


A great fear 


Should grow to healing, when the con- 


And pity froze my blood, who seemed 


crete stain 


to see 


Of life and act were purged, and the 


A half- remembered form. 


cleansed soul, 


An Eastern King 


Renewed by the slow wear and waste 


It was who lay in pain. He wore a 


of time. 


crown 


Soared after reons of days. 


Upon his aching brow, and his white 


They seemed alone, 


robe 


Those prisoners, thro' all time. Each 


Was jewelled with fair gems of price. 


soul shut fast 


the signs 


In its own jail of woe, apart, alone, 


Of pomp and honour and all luxury, 


For evermore alone ; no thought of 


Which might prevent desire. But as I 


kin, 


looked 


Or kindly human glance, or fellowship 


There came a hunger in the gloating 


Of suffering or of sin, made light the 


eyes, 


load 


A quenchless thirst upon the parching 


Of solitary pain. Ay, though they 


lips, 


walked 


And such unsatisfied strainings in the 


Together, or were prisoned in one cell 


hands 


With the partners of their wrong, or 


Stretched idly forth on what I could 


with strange souls 


not see, 


Which the same Furies tore, they knew 


Some fatal food of fancy ; that I knew 


them not. 


The undying worm of sense, which frets 


But suffered still alone ; as in that 


and gnaws 


shape 


The unsatisfied stained soul. 


Of hell, fools build on earth, where 


Seeing me, he said : 


hopeless sin 


"What? And art thou too damned 


Rots slow in solitude, nor sees the 


as I ? Dost know 


face 


This thirst as I, and see as I the cool 


Of men, nor hears the sound of speech. 


Lymph drawn from thee and mock 


nor feels 


thy lips ; and parch 



154 



TANTALUS. 



For ever in continual thirst ; and mark 


Or sober harvest fields, show like a 


The fair fruit offered to thy hunger 


dream ; 


fade 


And nought is left, but the young life 


Before thy longing eyes ? I thought 


which floats 


there was 


Upon the depths of death, to sink. 


No other as I thro' all the weary 


maybe. 


lengths 


And drown in pleasure, or rise at length 


Of Time the gods have made, who 


grown wise 


pined so long 


And gain the abandoned shore. 


And found fruition mock him. 


Ah, but at last 


Long ago, 


The swift desire burns stronger and 


When I was young on eartli, 'twas a 


more strong, 


sweet pain 


And feeding on itself, grows tyrannous ; 


To ride all day in the long chase, and 


And the parched soul no longer finds 


feel 


delight 


Toil and the summer fire my blood and 


In the cool stream of old ; nay, this 


parch 


itself. 


My lips, while in my father's halls I 


Smitten 1)y the fire of sense as by a 


knew 


flame. 


The cool bath waited, with its marble 


Holds not its coolness more ; and 


floor; 


fevered limbs, 


And juices from the ripe fruits pressed, 


Seeking the fresh tides of their youth, 


and chilled 


may find 


With snows from far-off peaks ; and 


No more refreshment, but a cauldron 


troops of slaves ; 


fired 


And music and the dance ; and fair 


With the fires of nether hell ; and a 


young forms. 


black rage 


And dalliance, and every joy of 


Usurps the soul, and drives it on to 


sense, 


slake 


That haunts the dreams of youth, which 


Its thirst with crime and blood. 


strength and ease 


Longing Desire ! 


Corrupt, and vacant hours. Ay, it 


Unsatisfied, sick, impotent Desire ! 


was sweet 


Oh, I have known it ages long. I 


For a while to plunge in these, as fair 


knew 


boys plunge 


Its pain on earth ere yet my life had 


Naked in summer streams, all veil of 


grown 


shame 


To its full stature, thro' the weary 


Laid by, only the young dear body 


years 


bathed 


Of manhood, nay, in age itself; I 


And sunk in its delight, while the firm 


knew 


earth, 


The selfsame weary thirst, unsatisfied 


The soft green pastures gay with inno- 


By all the charms of sense, by wealth 


cent flowers. 


and power 



TANTALUS. 



155 



And homage ; always craving, never 

quenched — 
The undying curse of the soul ! The 

ministers 
And agents of my will drave far and 

wide 
Over all lands and seas, seeking to 

find 
Fresh pleasures for me, who had spent 

my sum 
Of pleasure, and had power, not even 

in thought, 
Nor faculty to enjoy. They tore apart 
The sacred claustral doors of home for 

me, 
Defiled the inviolate hearth for me, 

laid waste 
The flower of humble lives, in hope to 

heal 
The sickly fancies of the King, till rose 
A cry of pain from all the land ; and I 
Grew happier for it, since I held the 

power 
To quench desire in blood. 

But even thus 
The old pain faded not, but swift again 
Revived ; and thro' the sensual dull 

lengths 
Of my seraglios I stalked, and marked 
The glitter of the gems, the precious 

webs 
Plundered from every clime by cruel 

wars 
That strewed the sands with corpses ; 

lovely eyes 
That looked no look of love, and fired 

no more 
Thoughts of the flesh ; rich meats, and 

fruits, and wines 
Grown flat and savourless ; and loathed 

them aH, 
And only cared for power ; content to 

shed 



Rivers of innocent blood, if only thus 
I might appease my thirst. Until I 

grew 
A monster gloating over blood and 

pain. 

Ah, weary, weary days, when every 

sense 
Was satisfied, and nothing left to slake 
The parched unhappy soul, except to 

watch 
The writhing limbs and mark the slow 

blood drip, 
Drop after drop, as the life ebbed with 

it; 
In a new thrill of lust, till blood itself 
Palled on me, and I knew the fiend I 

was, 
Yet cared not — I who was, brief years 

ago, 
Only a careless boy lapt round with 

ease, 
Stretched by the soft and stealing tide 

of sense 
Which now grew red ; nor ever dreamed 

at all 
What Furies lurked beneath it, but had 

shrunk 
In indolent horror from the sight of 

tears 
And misery, and felt my inmost soul 
Sicken with the thought of blood. 

There comes a time 
When the insatiate brute within the 

man, 
Weary with wallowing in the mire, 

leaps forth 
Devouring, and the cloven satyr-hoof 
Grows to the rending claw, and the 

lewd leer 
To the horrible fanged snarl, and the 

soul sinks 
And leaves the man a devil, all his sin 



156 



TANTALUS. 



Grown savourless, and yet he longs to 


I kept the inner mysteries of Zeus 


sin 


And knew the secret of all Being ; who 


And longs in vain for ever. 


was 


Yet, methinks. 


A sick and impotent wretch, so sick. 


It was not for the gods to leave me 


so tired, 


thus. 


That even bloodshed palled. 


I stinted not their worship, building 


For my stained soul, 


shrines 


Knowing its sin, hastened to purge 


To all of them ; the Goddess of Love I 


itself 


served 


With every rite and charm which the 


With hecatombs, letting the fragrant 


dark lore 


fumes 


Of priestcraft offered to it. Spells 


Of incense and the costly steam ascend 


obscene, 


From victims year by year ; nay, my 


The blood of innocent babes, sorceries 


own son 


foul 


relops, my best beloved, I gave to 


Muttered at midnight — these could 


them 


occupy 


Offering, as he must orfer who would 


My weary days ; till all my people 


gain 


shrank 


The great gods' grace, my dearest. 


To see me, and the mother clasped her 


1 had gained 


child 


Through long and weary orgies that 


Who heard the monster pass. 


strange sense 


They would not hear, 


Of nothingness and wasted days which 


They listened not — the cold ungrateful 


blights 


gods — 


The exhausted life, bearing upon its 


For all my supplications ; nay, the 


front 


more 


Counterfeit knowledge, when the bitter 


I sought them were they hidden. 


ash 


At the last 


Of Evil, which the sick soul loathes, 


A dark voice whispered nightly : 


appears 


' Thou, poor wretch, 


Like the pure fruit of Wisdom. I had 


That art so sick and impotent, thyself 


grown 


The source of all thy misery, the great 


As wizards seem, who mingle sensual 


gods 


rites 


Ask a more precious gift and excel- 


And forms impure with murderous 


lent 


spells and dark 


Than alien victims which thou prizest 
not 


Enchantments ; till the simple people 


held 


And givest without a pang. But shouldst 


My very weakness wisdom, and 


thou take 


believed 


Thy costliest and fairest offering, 


That in my blood-stained palace-halls, 


'Twere otherwise. The life which thou 


withdrawn, 


hast given 



TANTALUS. 



'57 



Thou mayst recall. Go, offer at the 


* Strike, fool ! thou art in hell ; strike, 


shrine 


fool ! and lose 


Thy best beloved Pelops, and appease 


The burden of thy chains.' Then with 


Zeus and the averted gods, and know 


slow step 


again 


I crept as ci-eeps the tiger on the deer, 


The youth and joy of yore.' 


Raised high my arm, shut close my eyes, 


Night after night, 


and plunged 


While all the halls were still, and the 


My dagger in his heart. 


cold stars 


And then, with a flash, 


Were fading into dawn, I lay awake 


The veil fell downward from my life 


Distraught with warring thoughts, my 


and left 


throbbing brain 


Myself to me — the daily sum of sense — 


P'illed with that dreadful voice. I had 


The long continual trouble of desire — 


not shrunk 


The stain of blood blotting the stain of 


From blood, but this, the strong son of 


lust— 


my youth — 


The weary foulness of my days, which 


How should I dare this thing? And 


wrecked 


all day long 


My heart and brain, and left me at the 


I would steal from sight of him and 


last 


men, and fight 


A madman and accursed ; and I knew, 


Against the dreadful thought, until the 


Far higher than the sensual slope which 


voice 


held 


Seared all my burning brain, and cla- 


The gods M'hom erst I worshipped, a 


moured, ' Kill ! 


white peak 


Zeus bids thee, and be happy.' Then 


Of Purity, and a stern voice pealing 


I rose 


doom— 


At midnight, when the halls were still, 


Not the mad voice of old — which 


and raised 


pierced so deep 


The arras, and stole soft to where my 


Within my life, that with the reeking 


son 


blade 


Lay sleeping. For one moment on his 


Wet with the heart's blood of my child 


face 


I smote 


And stalwart limbs I gazed, and marked 


My guilty heart in twain. 


the rise 


Ah ! fool, to dream 


And fall of his young breast, and the 


That the long stain of time might fade 


soft plume 


and merge 


Which drooped upon his brow, and 


In one poor chrism of blood. They 


felt a thrill 


taught of yore. 


Of yearning ; but the cold voice urging 


My priests who flattered me — nor knew 


me 


at all 


Burned me like fire. Three times I 


The greater God I know, who sits afar 


gazed and turned 


Beyond those earthly shapes, passion- 


Irresolute, till last it thundered at me. 


less, pure, 



:S8 



TANTALUS. 



And awful as the Dawn — that the gods 


The yearning, the fruition. Earth is 


cared 


hell 


For costly victims, drinking in the 


Or heaven, and yet not only earth ; but 


steam 


still, 


Of sacrifice when the choice hecatombs 


After the swift soul leaves the gates of 


Were offered for my wrong. Ah no ! 


death, 


there is 


The pain grows deeper and less mixed. 


No recompense in these, nor any charm 


the joy 


To cleanse the stain of sin, but the long 


Purer and less alloyed, and wc are 


Avear 


damned 


Of suffering, when the soul which 


Or blest, as we have lived." 


seized too much 


He ceased, with a wail 


Of pleasure here, grows righteous by 


Like some complaining wind among 


the pain 


the pines 


That doth redress its ill. For what is 


Or pent among the fretful ocean caves. 


Right 


A sick, sad sound. 


But equipoise of Nature, alternating 


Then as I looked, I saw 


The Too Much and Too Little ? Not 


His eyes glare horribly, his dry parched 


on earth 


lips 


Tlie salutary silent forces work 


Open, his weary hands stretch idly 


Their final victory, but year on year 


forth 


Passes, and age on age, and leaves the 


As if to clutch the air — infinite pain 


debt 


And mockery of hope. " Seest thou 


Unsatisfied, while the o'erburdened 


them now ? " 


soul 


He said. " I thirst, I parch, I famish. 


Unloads itself in pain. 


yet 


Therefore it is 


They still elude me, fair and tempting 


I suffer as I suffered ere swift death 


fruit 


Set me not free, no otherwise ; and yet 


And cooling waters. Now they come 


There comes a healing purpose in my 


again. 


pain 


See, they are in my grasp, they are at 


I never knew on earth ; nor ever here 


my lips, 


The once-loved evil grows, only the 


Now I shall quench me. Nay, again 


tale 


they fly 


Of penalties grown greater hourly 


And mock me. Seest thou them, or 


dwarfs 


am I shut 


The accomplished sum of wrong. And 


From hope for ever, hungering, thirst- 


yet desire 


ing still. 


Pursues me still — sick, impotent desire. 


A madman and in Hell ? " 


Fiercer than that of earth. 


And as I passed 


We are ourselves 


In horror, his large eyes and straining 


Our heaven and hell, the joy, the 


hands 


penalty, 


Froze all my soul witli pity. 



PHMDRA. 



'59 



Then it was 
A woman whom I saw : a dark pale 

Queen, 
With passion in her eyes, and fear and 

pain 
Holding her steadfast gaze, like one 

wlio sees 
Some dreadful deed of wrong worked 

out and knows 
Himself the cause, yet now is powerless 
To stay the wrong he would. 

Seeing me gaze 
In pity on her woe, she turned and spake 
With a low wailing voice — 

"Thou well mayst gaze 
With horror on me, sir, for I am lost ; 
I have shed the innocent blood, long 

years ago, 
Nay, centuries of pain. I have shed 

the blood 
Of him I loved, and found for recom- 
pense 
But self-inflicted death and age-long 

woe. 
Which purges not my sin. And yet 

not I 
It was who did it, but the gods, who 

took 
A woman's loveless heart and tortured it 
With love as with a fire. It was not I 
W^ho slew my love, but Fate. Fate 

'twas which brought 
My love and me together, Fate which 

barred 
The path of blameless love, yet set 

Love's flame 
To burn and smoulder in a hopeless 

heart, 
W^here no relief might come. 



The King was old. 
And I a girl. 'Tis an old tale which 

runs 
Thro' the sad ages, and 'twas mine. 

He had spent 
His sum of love long since, and I— I 

knew not 
A breath of Love as yet. Ah, it is 

strange 
To lose the sense of maidenhood, drink 

deep 
Of life to the very dregs, and yet not 

know 
A flutter of Love's wing. Love takes 

no thought 
For pomp, or palace, or respect of men ; 
Nor always in the stately marriage bed. 
Closed round, by silken curtains, laid 

on down, 
Nestles a rosy form ; but 'mid wild 

flowers 
Or desert tents, or in the hind's low 

cot. 
Beneath the aspect of the unconscious 

stars. 
Dwells all night and is blest. 

My love, my life ! 
He was the old man's son, a fair white 

soul — 
Not like the others, whom the fire of 

youth 
Burns like a flame and hurries un- 
restrained 
Thro' riotous days and nights, but 

virginal 
And pure as any maid. No careless 

glance 
He deigned for all the maidens young 

and fair 
Who sought their Prince's eye. But 

evermore. 
On the high pastures wandering alone, 
He dwelt unwed ; weaving to Artemis, 



i6o 



PHALDRA. 



Fairest of all Olympian maids, a wreath 
From the unpolluted meads, where 

never herd 
Drives his white flock, nor ever seythc 

has come, 
F)Ut the bee sails upon unfettered wing 
Over the spring-like lawns, and Purity 
Waters them with soft dews ; * and 

yet he showed 
Of all his peers most manly — heart and 

soul 
A very man, tender and true, and strong 
And pitiful, and in his limbs and mien 
Fair as Apollo's self. 

It was at first 
In Trcezen that I saw him, when he came 
To greet his sire. Amid the crowd of 

youths 
He showed a Prince indeed ; yet knew 

I not 
Whom 'twas I saw, nor that I held the 

place 
Which was his mother's, only from the 

throng 
Love, with a barbed dart aiming, pierced 

my heart 
Ere yet I knew what ailed me. Every 

glance 
I'^ired me ; the youthful grace, the tall 

straight limbs. 
The swelling sinewy arms, the large 

dark eyes 
Tender yet full of passion, the thick 

locks 
Tossed from his brow, the lip and cheek 

which bore 
The down of early manhood, seemed 

to feed 
My heart with short-lived joy. 

For when he stood 
Forth from the throng and knelt before 

his sire, 
* Euripides, " Hippolytus," lines 70-78. 



Then raised his gaze to mine, I felt the 

curse 
Of Aphrodite burn me, as it burned 
My mother before me, and I dared not 

meet 
His innocent, frank young eyes. 

Said I then young ? 
Ay, but not young as mine. But I had 

known 
The secret things of life, whicli age the 

soul 
In a moment, writing on its front their 

mark 
* Too early ripe ; ' and he was innocent, 
My spouse in fitted years, within whose 

arms 
I had defied the world, 

I turned away 
Like some white bird that leaves the 

flock, which sails 
High in mid air above the haunts of 

men, 
Feeling some little dart within her 

breast. 
Not death, but like to death, and slowly 

sinks 
Down to the earth alone, and bears her 

hurt 
Unseen, by herbless sand and bitter 

pool , 
And pines until the end. 

Even from that day 
I strove to gain his love. Nay, 'twas 

not I, 
But the cruel gods who drove me. Day 

by day 
We were together ; for in days of old 
Women were free, not pent in gilded 

jails 
As afterwards, but free to M-alk alone. 
For good or evil, free. I hardly took 
Thought for my spouse, the King. For 

I had found 



PH/EDRA. 



i6i 



My love at last : what matter if it 

were 
A guilty love ? Yet love is love indeed, 
Stronger than heaven or hell. Day 

after day 
I set myself to tempt him from his 

proud 
And innocent way, for I had spurned 

aside 
Care for the gods or men — all but my 

love. 

What need to tell the tale ? Was it 

a sigh, 
A blush, a momentary glance, which 

brought 
Assurance of my triumph ? It is long 
Since I have lived, I cannot tell ; I 

know 
Only the penalty of death and hell 
Which followed on my sin, I knew he 

loved. 
It was not wonderful, seeing that we 

dwelt 
A boy and girl together. I was fair, 
And Eros fired my eyes and lent my 

voice 
His own soft tremulous tones. But 

when our souls 
Trembled, upon the verge, and fancy 

feigned. 
His arms around me as we fled alone 
To some free land of exile, came a 

scroll ; 
* Dearest, it may not be ; I fear the 

Gods ; 
We dare not do this wrong. I go from 

hence 
And see thy face no more. Farewell ! 

Forget 
The love we may not own ; go, seek for 

both 
Forgiveness from the gods.' 



When I read the words, 
The cruel words, methought my heart 

stood still. 
And when the ebbing life returned I 

seemed 
To have lost all thought of Love. Only 

Revenge 
Dwelt with me still, the fiercer tliat I 

knew 
My long-prized hope, which came so 

near success, 
Snatched from me and for ever. 

When I rose 
From my deep swoon, I bade a mes- 
senger 
Go, seek the King for me. He came 

and sate 
Beside my couch, and all the doors 

were closed, 
And all withdrawn. Then with the 

liar's art, 
And hypocrite tears, and feigned re- 

luctancy. 
And all the subtle wiles a woman draws 
From the armoury of hate, I did instil 
The poison on his soul. Cunning 

devices, 
False grief, false anger with his son, 

regrets, 
And half confessions — these, with hate- 
ful skill 
Confused together, drove the old man's 

brain 
To frenzy ; and I watched him, with a 

sneer, 
Turn to a dotard thirsting for the life 
Of his own child. But how to do the 

deed. 
Yet shed no blood, nor know the 

people's hate, 
Who loved the Prince, I knew not. 

Till one day 
The old man, looking out upon the sea, 

M 



l62 



PH.^DRA. 



Besought the dread Poseidon to avenge 
The treachery of his son. And as we 

stood 
Gazing upon the breathless blue, a cloud 
Rose from the deep, a little fleecy cloud, 
Which sudden grew and grew, and 

turned the blue 
To purple ; and a keen wind rose and 

sang 
Higher and higher, and the wine-dark 

sea 
Grew ruffled, and within the circling 

bay 
The tiny ripples, stealing up the sand. 
Plunged loud with manes of foam, until 

they swelled 
To misty surges thundering on the shore. 

Then at the old man's elbow as I 

stood, 
A deep dark thought, sent by the powers 

of ill, 
Answering, as now I know, my own 

black hate 
And not my poor dupe's anger, fired my 

soul 
And bade me speak. ' The god has 

heard thy prayer,' 
I whispered ; ' See the surge which 

wakes and swells 
To fury ; well I know what things shall 

be. 
It is Poseidon's voice sounds in the 

storm 
And sends thy vengeance. Young Hip- 

polytus 
Loves, as thou knowest, on the yellow 

sand, 
Hard by the rippled margin of the wave, 
To urge his flying steeds. Bid him go 

forth— 
He will obey — and see what recompense 
The god will send his wrong. 



In the old man's eyes 

A watery gleam of malice played 
awhile — 

I hate him for it — and he bade his son, 

Yoking his three young fiery colts, drive 
forth 

His chariot on the sand. 

And still the storm 

Blew fiercer and more fierce, and the 
white crests 

Plunged on the strand, and the loud 
promontories 

Thundered back repercussive, and a 
mist 

Of foam, torn landv/ard, hid the sound- 
ing shore. 

Then saw I him come forth and bid 

them yoke 
His untamed colts, I had not seen his 

face 
Since that last day, but, seeing him, I 

felt 
The old love spring anew, yet mixed 

with hate — 
A storm of warring passions. Tho' I 

knew 
What end should come, yet would I 

speak no word 
That might avert it. The old man 

looked forth ; 
I think he had well-nigh forgotten all 
The wrong he fancied and the doom he 

prayed, 
All but the father's pride in the strong 

son, 
Who was so young and bold. I saw a 

smile 
Upon the dotard's face, when now the 

steeds 
Were harnessed and the chariot, on the 

sand 
Along the circling margin of the bay. 



PH^DRA. 



163 



Flew, swift as liglit. A sudden gleam 


Swelled swiftly towards tlie land ; the 


of sun 


lesser waves 


Flashed on the silver harness as it went, 


Sank as it came, and to its toppling 


Burned on the brazen axles of the 


crest 


wheels, 


The spume-flecked waters, from the 


And on the golden fillets of the Prince 


strand drawn back. 


Doubled the gold. Sometimes a larger 


Left dry the yellow shore- Onward it 


wave 


came. 


Would dash in mist around him, and in 


Hoarse, capped with breaking foam. 


fear 


lurid, immense. 


The rearing coursers plunged, and then 


Rearing its dreadful height. The 


again 


chariot sped 


The strong young arm constrained 


Nearer and nearer. I could see my love 


th^m, and they flashed 


With the light of victory in his eyes. 


To where the wave-worn foreland ends 


the smile 


the bay. 


Of daring on his lips : so near he came 




To where the marble palace-wall con- 


And then he turned his chariot, a 


fined 


bright speck 


The narrow strip of beach— his brave 


Now seen, now hidden, but always, 


young eyes 


tho' the surge 


Fixed steadfast on the goal, in the pride 


Broke round it, safe ; emerging like a 


of life, 


star 


Without a thought of death. I strove 


From the white clouds of foam. And 


to cry. 


as I watched. 


But terror choked my breath. Then, 


Speaking no word, and breathing scarce 


like a bull 


a breath. 


Upon the windy level of the plain 


I saw the firm limbs strongly set apart 


Lashing himself to rage, the furious 


Upon the chariot, and the reins held 


wave, 


high. 


Poising itself a moment, tossing high 


And the proud head bent forward, with 


Its bristling crest dashed downward on 


long locks 


the strand. 


Streaming behind, as nearer and more 


With a stamp, with a rush, with a roar. 


near 


And when I looked. 


The swift team rushed — until, with a 


The shore, the fields, the plain, were 


half joy. 


one white sea 


It seemed as if my love might yet elude 


Of churning, seething foam — chariot 


The slow sure anger of the god, dull 


and steeds 


wrath 


Gone, and my darling on the wild mad 


Swayed by a woman's lie. 


surge 


But on the verge. 


Tossed high, whirled down, beaten. 


As I cast my eyes, a vast and purple 


and bruised, and flung. 


wall 


Dying upon the marble. 



i64 



PH/EDRA. 



My great love 
Sprang up redoubled, and cast out my 

hate 
And spurned all thought of fear ; and 

down the stair 
I hurried, and upon the bleeding form 
I threw myself, and raised his head, 

and clasped 
His body to mine, and kissed him on 

the lips. 
And in his dymg ear confessed my 

wrong. 
And saw the horror in his dying eyes 
And knew that I was damned. And 

when he breathed 
His last pure breath, I rose and slowly 

spake — 
Turned to a Fury now by love and 

pain — 
To the old man who knelt, while all 

the throng 
Could hear my secret : ' See, thou fool, 

I am 
The murderess of thy son, and thou my 

dupe. 
Thou and thy gods. See, he was 

innocent ; 
I murdered him for love. I scorn ye all, 
Thee and thy gods together, who are 

deceived 
By a woman's lying tongue ! Oh, 

doting fool. 
To hate thy own ! And ye, false 

powers, which punish 
The innocent, and let the guilty soul 
Escape unscathed, I hate ye all — I 

curse, 
I loathe you ! ' 

Then I stooped and kissed my love, 
And left them in amaze ; and up the 

stair 
Swept slowly to my chamber, and 

therein. 



Hating^ my life and cursing men and 

gods, 
I did myself to death. 

But even here, 
I find my punishment. Oh, terrible 

doom 
Of souls like mine ! To see their evil 

done 
Always befoie their eyes, the one dread 

scene 
Of horror. See, the wild wave on the 

verge 
Towers horrible, and he Oh, Love, 

my Love ! 
Safety is near ! quick ! quicker ! urge 

them on ! 
Thou wilt 'scape it yet : — Nay, nay, it 

bursts on him ! 
I have shed the innocent blood I Oh, 

dreadful gaze 
Within his glazmg eyes ! Hide them, 

ye gods ! 
Hide them ! I cannot bear them. 

Quick ! a dagger ! 
I will lose their glare in death. Nay, 

die I cannot ; 
I must endure and live — Death brings 

not peace 
To the lost souls in Hell." 

And her eyes stared. 
Rounded with horror, and she stooped 

and gazed 
So eagerly, and pressed her fevered hands 
Upon her trembling forehead with such 

pain 
As drives the gazer mad. 



SISYPHUS. 



165 





Downwaid, and marking every crag 




with gore 




And long gray hairs, it plunged, yet 


Then as I passed, 


living still, 


I marked against the hardly dawning sky 


To the black hollow ; and then a 


A toilsome figure standing, bent and 


silence came 


strained, 


More dreadful than the noise, and a 


Before a rocky mass, which with great 


low groan 


pain 


Was all that I could hear. 


And agony of labour it would thrust 


When to the foot 


Up a steep hill. But when upon the cresi 


Of the dark steep I hurried, half in hope 


It poised a moment, then I held my 


To find the victim dead — not recog- 


breath 


nizing 


With dread, for, lo ! the poor feet 


The undying life of Hell— I seemed to 


seemed to clutch 


see 


The hillside as in fear, and the poor 


An aged man, bruised, bleeding, with 


hands 


gray hairs. 


With hopeless fingers pressed into the 


And eyes from ^^•hich the cunning leer 


stone 


of greed 


In agony, and the limbs stiffened, and 


Was scarcely yet gone out. 


a cry 


A crafty voice 


Like some strong swimmer's, whom the 


It was that answered me, the voice of 


mightier stream 


guile 


Sweeps downward, and he sees his 


Part purified by pain : 


children's eyes 


" There comes not death 


Upon the bank ; broke from him ; and 


To those who live in Hell, nor hardly 


at last, 


pause 


After long wrestlings with despair, the 


Of suffering longer than may serve to 


limbs 


make 


Relaxed, and as I closed my fearful eyes. 


The pain renewed, more piercing. 


Seeing the inevitable doom — a crash, 


Long ago, 


A horrible thunderous noise, as down 


I thought that I had cheated Death, 


the steep 


and now 


The shameless fragment leapt. From 


I seek him ; but he comes not, nor 


crag to crag 


know I 


It bounded ever swifter, flashing fire 


If ever he will hear me. Whence art 


And wreathed with smoke, as to the 


thou ? 


lowest depths 


Comest thou from earthly air, or 


Of the vale it tore, and seemed to take 


whence ? What power 


with it 


Has brought thee hither ? For I know 


The miserable form whose painful gaze 


indeed 


I caught, as with the great rock whirled 


Thou art not lost as I ; for never here 


and dashed 


I look upon a human face, nor see 



\ 



[o6 



SISYPHUS. 



The ghosts who doubtless here on eveiy 

side 
Suffer a common pain, only at times 
I hear the echo of a shriek far off, 
Like some faint ghost of woe which 

fills the pause 
And interval of suffering ; but from 

■whom 
The voice may come, or whence, I 

know not, only 
The air teems with vague pain, which 

doth distract 
The ear when for a moment comes 

surcease 
Of agony, and the sense of effort spent 
In vain and fruitless labour, and the pang 
Of long-deferred defeat, which waits 

and takes 
The world-worn heart, and maddens it 

when all — 
Heaven, conscience, happiness, -are 

staked and lost 
For gains which still elude it. 

Yet 'twas sweet, 
A King in early youth, when pleasure 

is sweet, 
To live the fair successful years, and 

know 
The envy and respect of men. I cared 
For none of youth's delights : the 

dance, the song, 
Allured me not ; the smooth soft ways 

of sense 
Tempted me not at all. I could despise 
The follies that I shared not, spending all 
The long laborious days in toilsome 

schemes 
To compass honour and wealth, and, 

as I grew 
In name and fame, finding my hoarded 

gains 
Transmuted into Power. The seas 

were white 



With laden argosies, and all were mine. 
The sheltering moles defied the wintry 

storms. 
And all were mine. The marble aque- 
ducts, 
The costly bridges, all were mine. 

Fair roads 
Wound round and round the hills — my 

work. The gods 
Alone I heeded not, nor cared at all. 
For aught but that my eyes and ears 

might take, 
Spurning invisible things, nor built I to 

them 
Temple or shrine, v/rapt up in life, set 

round 
With earthly blessings like a god. I rose 
To such excess of weal and fame and 

pride, 
My people held me god-like. I grew 

drunk 
With too great power, scoffing at men 

and gods. 
Careless of both, but not averse to fling 
To those too weak themselves, what 

benefits 
My larger wisdom spurned. 

Then suddenly 
I knew the pain of failure. Summer 

storms 
Sucked down my fleets even within 

sight of port. 
A grievous blight wasted the harvest- 
fields, 
Mocking my hopes of gain. Wars 

came and drained 
My store,and I grewneedy,knowing now 
The hell of stronger .souls, the loss of 

power 
Wherein they exulted once. There 

comes no pain 
Deeper than to have known delight of 

power, 



SISYFBUS. 



167 



And then to lose it all. But T, I would 

not 
Sit tame beneath defeat, trimming my 

sails 
To wait the breeze of Fortune — fickle 

breath 
Which perhaps might breathe no more 

— but chose instead 
By rash conceit and bolder enterprise 
To win her aid again. I had no thought 
Of selfish gain, only to be and act 
As a god to those, feeding my sum of 

pride 
With acted good. 

But evermore defeat 
Dogged me, and more and more my 

people grew 
To doubt me, seeing not the wealth, 

the force, 
Which once they worshipped. Then 

the lust of power 
Loved, not for sake of others, but itself, 
Grew on me, and the pride which can 

dare all, 
Save failure only, seized me. Evil 

finds 
Its ready chance. There were rich 

argosies 
Upon the seas : I sank them, ship and 

crew. 
In the unbetraying ocean. Wayfarers 
Crossing the passes with rich mer- 
chandise 
My creatures, hid behind the crags, 

o'erwhelmed 
With rocks hurled downward. Yet I 

spent my gains 
For the public weal, not otherwise ; 

and they. 
The careless people, took the piteous 

spoils 
Which cost the lives of many, and a 

man's soul, 



And blessed the giver. Empty venal 

blessings. 
Which sting more deep than curses ! 

For awhile 
I was content with this, but at the last 
A great contempt and hatred of them 

took me, 
The base, vile churls ! Why should 

I stain my soul 
For such as those — dogs that would 

fawn and lick 
The hand that fed them, but, if food 

should fail. 
Would turn and rend me? I would 

none of them ; 
I would grow rich and happy, being 

indeed 
Godlike in brain to such. So with all 

craft. 
And guile, and violence I enriched me, 

loading 
My treasuries with gold. My deep-laid 

schemes 
Of gain engrossed the long laborious 

days. 
Stretched far into the night. Enjoy, 

I might not, 
Seeing it was all to do, and life so brief 
That ere a man might gain the goal he 

would, 
Lo ! Age, and with it Death, and so 

an end ! 
For all the tales of the indignant gods. 
What were they but the priests'? I 

had myself 
Broken all oaths ; long time deceived 

and ruined 
With every phase of fraud the j^ious 

fools 
Whom oath-sworn Justice bound ; 

battened on blood ; 
And what was I the w orse ? How 

should the gods 



1 68 



SISYPHUS. 



Bear rule if I were happy? Death alone 
Was certain. Therefore must I haste 

to heap 
Treasure sufficient for my need, and 

then 
Enjoy the gathered good. 

But gradually 
There came — not great disasters which 

might crush 
All hope, but petty checks which did 

decrease 
My store, and left my labour vain, and 

iiie 
Unwilling to enjoy ; and gradually 
I felt the chill approach of age, which 

stole 
Higher and higher on me, till the life. 
As ki a paralytic, left my limbs 
And heart, and mounted upwards to 

my brain, 
Its last resort, and rested there awhile 
Ere it should spread its wings. But 

even thus, 
Tho' powerless to enjoy, the insatiate 

greed 
And thirst of power sustained me, and 

supplied 
Life's spark with some scant fuel, till 

it seemed, 
Year after year, as if I could not die. 
Holding so fast to life. I grew so old 
That all the comrades of my youth, 

my prime, 
My age, were gone, and I was left alone 
With those who knew me not, bereft 

of all 
Except my master passion — an old man 
Forlorn, forgotten of the gods and 

Death. 

Yet all the people, seeing me grow old 
And prosperous, held me wise, and 
spread abroad 



Strange fables, growing day by day 

more strange — 
How I deceived the very gods. They 

thought 
That I was blest, remembering not the 

wear 
Of anxious thought, the growing sum 

of pain, 
The failing ear and eye, the slower 

limbs. 
Whose briefer name is Age : and yet I 

trow 
I was not all unhappy, though I knew 
It was too late to enjoy, and though 

my store 
Increased not as my greed — nay, even 

sunk down 
A little, year by year. Till, last of 

all, 
When now my time was come and I 

had grown 
A little tired of living, a trivial hurt 
Laid me upon my bed ; and as I mused 
On my long life and all its villanies, 
The wickedness I did, the blood I shed, 
The guile, the frauds of years — they 

came with news. 
One now, and now another ; how my 

schemes 
Were crushed, my enterprises lost, my 

toil 
And labour all in vain. Day after day 
They brought these tidings, while I 

longed to rise 
And stay the tide of ill, and raved to 

know 
I could not. At the last the added sum 
Of evil, like yon great rock poised 

awhile 
Uncertain, gathered into one, o'er- 

whelmed 
My feeble strength, and left me ruined 

and lost, 



SISYPHUS. 



169 



And showed me all I was, and all the 

depth 
And folly of my sin, and racked my 

brain, 
And sank me m despair and misery, 
And broke my heart and slew me. 

Therefore 'tis 
1 spend the long, long centuries which 

have come 
Between me and my sin, in such dread 

tasks 
As that thou sawest. In the soul I 

sinned : 
In body and soul I sufler. What I bade 
My minions do to others, that of woe 
I bear myself; and in the pause of ill, 
As now, I know again the bitter pang 
Of failure, which of old pierced thro' 

my soul 
And left me to despair. The pain of 

mind 
Is fiercer far than any bodily ill, 
And both are mine — the pang of tor- 
ture-pain 
Always recurring ; and, far worse, the 

pang 
Of consciousness of black sins sinned 

in vain — 
The doom of constant failure. 

Will, fierce Will ! 
Thou parent of unrest and toil and 

woe, 
Measureless effort ! growing day by day 
To force strong souls along the giddy 

steep 
That slopes to the pit of Hell, where 

effort serves 
Only to speed destruction ! Yet I know 
Thou art not, as some hold, the primal 

curse 
Which doth condemn us ; since thou 

bearest in thee 
No power to satisfy thyself ; but rather. 



The spring of act, whereby in earth 

and heaven 
Both men and gods do breathe and 

live and are. 
Since Lifer is Act and not to Do is 

Death— 
I do not blame thee : but to work in 

vain 
Is bitterest penalty : to find at last 
The soul all fouled with sin and stained 

with blood 
In vain ; ah, this is hell indeed — the 

hell 
Of lost and striving souls ! " 

Then as I passed, 
The halting figure bent itself again 
To the old task, and up the rugged 

steep 
Thrust the great rock wuth groanings. 

Horror chained 
My parting footsteps, like a nightmare 

dream 
Which holds us that we flee not, with 

fixed eyes 
That loathe to see, yet cannot choose 

but gaze 
Till all be done. Slowly, with dread- 
ful toil 
And struggle and strain, and bleeding 

hands and knees. 
And more than mortal strength, against 

the hill 
He pressed, the wretched one ! till 

with long pain 
He trembled on the summit, a gaunt 

form. 
With that great rock above him, poised 

and strained, 
Now gaining, now receding, now in act 
To win the summit, now borne down 

again. 
And then the inevitable crash — the 



CL YT/EMNESTRA. 



Leaping from crag to crag. But ere it 


Honour or pity, when the swift fire takes 


ceased 


A woman's heart, and burns it out, and 


In dreadful silence, and the low groan 


leaps 


came, 


With fierce forked tongue around it, 


My limbs were loosed with one con- 


till it lies 


vulsive bound ; 


In ashes, a dead heart, nor aught re- 


I hid my face within my hands, and fled. 


mains 


Surfeit with horror. 


Of old affections, naught but the new 




flame 




Which is unquenched desire ? 




It did not come, 




My blessing, all at once, but the slow 


Then it was again 


fruit 


A woman whom I saw, pitiless, stern, 


Of solitude and midnight loneliness. 


Bearing the brand of blood — a lithe 


And weary waiting for the tardy news 


dark form, 


Of taken Troy. Long years I sate alone, 


And cruel eyes which burned beneath 


Widowed, within my palace, while my 


the gems 


Lord 


That argued her a Queen, and on her 


Was over seas, waging the accursed war, 


side 


First of the file of Kings. Year after 


An ancient stain of gore, which did 


year 


befoul 


Came false report, or harder, no report 


Her royal robe. A murderess in thought 


Of the great fleet. The summers waxed 


And dreadful act, who took within the 


and waned. 


toils 


The wintry surges smote the sounding 


Her kingly Lord, and slew him of old 


shores. 


time 


And yet there came no end of it. They 


After burnt Troy. I had no time to 


brought 


speak 


Now hopeless failure, now great vic- 


When she shrieked thus : 


tories ; 


" It doth repent me not. 


And all alike were false, all but delay 


I would 'twere yet to do, and I would 


And hope deferred, which coming not, 


do it 


can break 


Again a thousand times, if the shed 


The strong heart sufi'ering wrings not. 


blood 


So I bore 


Might for one hour restore me to the 


Long time the solitary years, and sought 


kisses 


To solace the dull days with motherly 


Of my ^gisthus. Oh, he was divine, 


cares 


My hero, with the godlike locks and 


For those my Lord had left me. My 


eyes 


firstborn, 


Of Eros' self ! What boots it that they 


Iphigeneia, sailed at first with him 


prate 


Upoii that fatal voyage, but the young 


Of wifely duty, love of spouse or child, 


Orestes and Electra stayed with me — 



CL YTMMNES TRA . 



171 



Not dear as she was, for the firstborn 


The wickedness, breathing no word of 


takes 


wrath. 


The mother's heart, and, with the milk 


Till all was done ! The cowards ! the 


it draws 


dull cowards ! 


From the mother's virgin breast, drains 


I would some black storm, bursting 


all the love 


suddenly, 


It bore, ay, even tho' the sire be dear ; 


Had whelmed them and their fleets, ere 


Much more, then, when he is a King 


yet they dared 


indeed, 


To waste an innocent life ! 


Mighty in war and council, but too high 


I had gone mad, 


To stoop to a woman's love. But she 


I know it, but for him, my love, my 


was gone, 


dear, 


Nor heard I tidings of her, knowing not 


My fair sweet love. He came to com- 


If yet she walked the earth, nor if she 


fort me 


bare 


With words of friendship, holding that 


The load of children, even as I had 


my Lord 


borne 


Was bound, perhaps, to let her die — 


Her in my opening girlhood, when I 


' The gods 


leapt 


Were ofttimes hard to appease— or was 


From child to Queen, but never loved 


it indeed 


the King. 


The priests who asked it ? Were there 




any gods ? 


Thus the slow years rolled onward. 


Or only phantoms, creatures of the brain, 


till at last 


Born of the fears of men, the greed of 


There came a dreadful rumour — ' She 


priests, 


is dead, 


Useful to govern women? Had he 


Thy daughter, years ago. The cruel 


been 


priests 


Lord of the fleet, not all the sooth- 


Clamoured for blood ; the stern cold 


sayers 


Kings stood round 


Who ever frighted cowards should have 


Without a tear, and he, her sire, with 


sunk 


them. 


His soul to such black depths.' I 


To see a virgin bleed. They cut with 


hearkening to him 


knives 


As 'twere my own thought grown 


The slender girlish throat; they watched 


articulate, 


the blood 


Found my grief turn to hate, and hate 


Drip slowly on the sand, and the young 


to love — 


life 


Hate of my Lord, love of the voice 


Meek as a lamb come to the sacrifice 


which spoke 


To appease the angry gods.' And he. 


Such dear and comfortable words. And 


the King, 


thus. 


Her father, stood by too, and saw them 


Love to a storm of passion growing, 


work 


swept 



72 



CL YTy^MNESTRA . 



My wounded soul and dried my tears, 

as dries 
The hot sirocco all the bitter pools 
Of salt among the sand. I never 

knew 
True love before ; I was a child, no 

more, 
When the King cast his eyes on me. 

What is it 
To have borne the weight of offspring 

'nealh the zone 
If Love be not their sire ; or live long 

years 
Of commerce, not of love ? Better a 

day 
Of Passion than the long unlovely years 
Of wifely duty, when Love cometh not 
To wake the barren days ! 

And yet at first 
I hesitated long, nor would embrace 
The blessing that was mine. We are 

hedged round, 
We women, by such close-drawn ordi- 
nances. 
Set round us by our tyrants, tliat we 

fear 
To overstep a hand's breadth the dull 

bounds 
Of custom ; but at last Love, waking 

in me, 
Burst all my chains asunder, and I 

lived 
For naught but Love. 

My son, the young Orestes, 
I sent far off; my girl Electra only 
Remained, too young to doubt me, and 

I knew 
At last what 'twas to live. 

vSo the swift years 
Fleeted and found me happy, till the 

black 
Ill-omened day when Rumour, thou- 

sand-tongued. 



Whispered of taken Troy ; and from 

my dream 
Of happiness, sudden I woke, and knew 
The coming retribution. We had 

grown 
Too loving for concealment, and our 

tale 
Of mutual love was bruited far and 

wide 
Through Argos. All the gossips bruited 

it,' 
And were all tongue to tell it to the 

King 
When he should come. And should 

the cold proud Lord 
I never loved, the murderer of my girl, 
Come 'twixt my love and me? A 

swift resolve 
Flashed through me pondering on it : 

Love for Love 
And Blood for Blood — the simple 

golden rule 
Taught by the elder gods. 

When I had taken 
My fixed resolve, I grew impatient for 

it, 
Counting the laggard days. Oh, it was 

sweet 
To simulate the yearning of a wife 
Long parted from her Lord, and mock 

the fools 
Who dogged each look and word, and 

but for fear 
Had torn me from my throne — the 

pies, the jays. 
The impotent chatterers, who thought 

by words 
To stay me in the act ! 'Twas sweet 

to mock them 
And read distrust within their eyes, 

when I, 
Knowing my purpose, bade them quick 

prepare 



CL YT/E MNES TRA . 



'3 



All fitting honours for the King, and 

knew 
They dared not disobey — oh, 'twas 

enough 
To wing the slow-paced hours. 

But when at last 
I saw his sails upon the verge, and then 
The sea worn ship, and marked his 

face grown old, 
The body a little bent, which was so 

straight. 
The thin grny hairs which were the 

raven locks 
Of manhood when he went, I felt a 

moment 
I could not do the deed. But when I 

saw 
The beautiful sad woman come with 

him, 
The future in her eyes, and her pale 

lips 
Silent, but charged with doom, two 

thoughts at once 
Assailed me, bidding me despatch with 

a blow 
Him and his mistress, making sure the 

will 
Of fate, and my revenge. 

Oh, it was strange 
To see all happen as we planned ; as 

'twere 
Some drama oft rehearsed, wherein 

each step. 
Each word, is so prepared, the poorest 

player 
Knows his turn come to do — the solemn 

landing— 
The ride to the palace gate — the cour- 
tesies 
Of welcome — the mute crowds without 

—the bath 
Prepared within — the precious circling 

folds 



Of tissue stretched around him, shutting 

out 
The gaze, and folding helpless like a 

net 
The mighty limbs — the battle-axe laid 

down 
Against the wall, and I, his wife and 

Queen, 
Alone with him, waiting and watching 

still, 
Till the woman shrieked without. 

Then with swift step 
I seized the axe, and struck him as he 

lay 
Helpless, once, twice, and thrice — once 

for my girl, 
Once for my love, once for the woman, 

and all 
For Fate and my Revenge ! 

He gave a groan. 
Once only, as I thought he might ; and 

then 
No sound but the quick gurgling of the 

blood. 
As it flowed from him in streams, and 

turned the pure 
And limpid water of the bath to red — 
I had not looked for that — it flowed 

and flowed. 
And seemed to madden me to look on 

it, 
Until my love with hands bloody as 

mine. 
But with the woman's blood, rushed in, 

and eyes 
Rounded with horror ; and Ave turned 

to go. 
And left the dead alone. 

But happiness 
Still mocked me, and a doubt un- 
known before 
Came on me, and amid the ^^ilken 

shows 



174 



CL YT/EMNESTRA. 



And luxury of power I seemed to 

see 
Another answer to my riddle of life 
Than that I gave myself, and it was 

* murder ; ' 
And in my people's sullen mien and 

eyes, 
' Murder ; ' and in the mirror, when I 

looked, 
' Murder ' glared out, and terror lest 

my son 
Returning, grown to manhood, should 

avenge 
His father's blood. For somehow, as 

'twould seem. 
The gods, if gods there be, or the stern 

Fate 
Which doth direct our little lives, do 

filch 
Our happiness— though bright with 

Love's own ray, 
There comes a cloud which veils it. 

Yet, indeed. 
My days were happy. I repent me 

not ; 
I would wade through seas of blood to 

know again 
Those keen delights once more. 

But my young girl 
Electra, grown to woman, turned from 

me 
Her modest maiden eyes, nor loved 

to set 
Her kiss upon my cheek, but, all dis- 
traught 
With secret care, hid her from all the 

pomps 
And revelries which did befit her youth, 
Walking alone ; and often at the tomb 
Of her lost sire they found her, pouring 

out 
Libations to the dead. And evermore 
I did bethink me of my son Orestes, 



WIio now should be a man ; and 

yearned sometimes 
To see his face, yet feared lest fr^m his 

eyes 
His father's soul should smite me. 

So I lived 
Plappy and yet unquiet — a stern voice 
Speaking of doom, which long time 

softer notes 
Of careless weal, the music that doth 

spring 
From the fair harmonies of life and 

love, 
Would drown in their own concord. 

This at times. 
Nay, day by day, stronger and dread- 
fuller, 
W^ith dominant accent, marred the 

sounds of joy 
By one prevailing discord. So at 

length 
I came to lose the Present in the 

dread 
Of what might come ; the penalty that 

waits 
Upon successful sin ; who, having 

sinned. 
Had missed my sin's reward. 

Until one day 
I, looking from my palace casement, 

saw 
A humble suppliant, clad in pilgrim 

garb. 
Approach the marble stair. A sudden 

throb 
Thrilled thro' me, and the mother's 

heart went forth 
Thro' all disguise of garb and rank and 

years. 
Knowing my son. How fair he was, 

how tall 
And vigorous, my boy ! What strong 

straight limbs 



CLYTMMNESTRA. 



175 



And noble port ! How beautiful the 

shade 
Of manhood on his lip ! ■ I loneed to 

' burst 
From my chamber down, yearning to 

throw myself 
Upon his neck within the palace court, 
Before the guards — spurning my 

queenly rank, 
All but my motherhood. And then a 

chill 
Of doubt o'erspread me, knowini); what 

a gulf 
Fate set between our lives, impass- 
able 
As that great gulf which yawns 'twixt 

life and death 
And 'twixt this Hell and Heaven. I 

shrank back. 
And turned to think a moment, half in 

fear. 
And half in pain ; dividing the swift 

mind, 
Yet all in love. 

Then came a cry, a groan, 
From the inner court, the clash of 

swords, the fall 
Of a corpse upon the pavement ; and 

one cried, 
' The King is dead, slain by the young 

Orestes, 
Who cometh hither.' With the word, 

the door 
Flew open, and my son stood straight 

before me, 
His drawn sword dripping blood. Oh, 

he was fair 
And terrible to see, when from his 

limbs, 
The~suppliant's mantle fallen, left the 

mail 
And arms of a young warrior. Love 

and Hate, 



Which are the offspring of a common 

sire. 
Strove for the mastery, till within his 

eyes 
I saw his father's ghost glare unappeased 
From out Love's casements. 

Then I knew my fate 
And his — mine to be slain by my son's 

hand, 
And his to slay me, ' since the Furies 

drave 
Our lives to one destruction ; and I 

took 
His point within my breast. 

But I praise not 
The selfish, careless gods who wrecked 

our lives. 
Making the King the murderer of his 

girl, 
And me his murderess; making my 

son 
The murderer of his mother and her 

love — 
A mystery of blood !— I curse them 

all, 
The careless Forces, sitting far with- 
drawn 
Upon the heights of Space, taking 

men's lives 
For playthings, and deriding as in 

sport 
Our happiness and woe — I curse them 

all. 
We have a right to joy ; we have a 

right, 
I say, as they have. Let them stand 

confessed 
The puppets that they are — too weak 

to give 
The good they feign to love, since Fate, 

too strong 
For them as us, beyond their painted 

sky, 



176 



CL YT/EMl^ESTRA 



Sits and derides them, all. I curse 

Fate loo, 
The deaf blind Fury, taking human 

souls 
And crushing them, as .a dull fretful 

child 
Crushes its toys and knows not with 

Avhat skill 
Those feeble forms are feigned. 

I curse, I loathe, 
I spit on them. It doth lepent me 

not. 
I would 'twere yet to do. I have lived 

my life. 
I have loved. See, there he lies within 

the bath, 
And thus I smite him! thus! Didst 

hear him groan ? 
Oh, vengeance, thou art sweet ! What, 

living still? 
Ah me ! we cannot die ! Come, torture 

me, 
Ye Furies— for I love not soothing 

words — 
As once ye did my son. Ye miserable 
Blind ministers of Hell, I do defy 

you; 
Not all your torments can undo the 

Past 
Of Passion and of Love ! " 

Even as she spake 
There came a viewless trouble in the 

air. 
Which took her, and a sweep of wings 

unseen, 
And terrible sounds, which swooped 

on her and hushed 
Her voice, and seemed to occupy her 

soul 
With horror and despair ; and as she 

passed 
I marked her agonized eyes. 



But as I went. 
Full many a dreadful shape of lonely 

pnin 
1 saw. What need to tell them ? We 

are filled 
Who live to-day with a more present 

sense 
Of the great love of God, than those of 

old 
Who, groping in the dawn of Know- 
ledge, saw 
Only dark shadows of the Unknown ; 

or he, 
First born of later singers, who swept 

deep 
His awful lyre, and woke the voice of 

song. 
Dumb thro' the age-long night. We 

dread to-day 
To dwell on those long agonies its sin 
Brings on the offending soul ; who 

hold a creed 
Of deeper Pity, knowing what chains 

of ill 
Confine our petty lives. Each phase 

of woe. 
Suffering, and torture which the gloomy 

thought 
Of bigots feigns for others — all were 

there. 
One there was stretched upon a rolling 

wheel, 
Which was the barren round of sense, 

that still 
Returned upon itself and broke the 

limbs 
Bound to it day and night. Others I 

saw 
Doomed, with unceasing toil, to fill tlic 
urns 



HADES. 



177 



Whose precious waters sank ere ihey 

could slake 
Their burning thirst. Another shapeless 

soul, 
Full of revolts and hates and tyrannous 

force, 
The weight of earth, which was its 

earth-born taint, 
Pressed groaning down, while with fierce 

beak and claw. 
The vulture of remorse, piercing his 

breast, 
Preyed on his heart. For others, over- 
head, 
Great crags of rock impending seemed 

to fall. 
But fell not nor brought peace. I felt 

my soul 
Blunted with horrors, yearning to escape 
To where, upon the limits of the wood. 
Some scanty twilight grew. 

But ere I passed 
From those grim shades a deep voice 

sounded near, 
A voice without a form. 

" There is an end 
Of all things that thou seest ! There is 

an end 
Of Wrong and Death and Hell, when 

the long wear 



Of Time and Suffering has effaced the 

stain 
Ingrown upon the soul, and the cleansed 

spirit, 
Long ages floating on the wandering 

winds 
Or rolling deeps of Space, renews itself 
And doth regain its dwelling, and, once 

more 
Blent with the general order, floats anew 
Upon the stream of Things,* and comes 

at length, 
After new deaths, to that dim waiting- 
place 
Thou next shalt see, and with the 

justified 
White souls awaits the End ; or,snatched 

at once, 
If Fate so will, to the pure sphere 

itself. 
Lives and is blest, and works the Eternal 

Work 
Whose name and end is Love ! There 

is an end 
Of Wrong and Death and Hell ! " 

Even as I heard, 
I passed from out the shadow of Death 

and Pain, 
Crying, " There is an end ! " 



BOOK II. 
HADES. 

There stirred no breath of air to \Aake 



Then from those dark 
And dreadful precincts passing, ghostly 

fields 
And voiceless took me. A faint twilight 

veiled 
The leafless, shadowy trees and herb- 
less plains. 



to life 
The slumbers of the world. The sl;y 

above 
Was one gray, changeless cloud; there 

looked no eye 
Of Life from the veiled heavens ; but 

Sleep and Death 



Virgil, "/Eneid " vi. 740. 



I 



17H 



AMA\SV/IS\ 



Com[)assecl luc evcrywhcic. And yd 




no fear 




Nor horror look nic Ikic, wlicic was 




no ]iain 


First I saw 


Nor dread, save thai slrangc tremor 


A youth who pensive leaned against 


which assails 


the trunk 


(J)iie\vh() in life's hot noontide looks on 


Of a daik cypress, and an idle flute 


death 


Hung at his side. A sorrowful sad 


And knows he too shall die. The 


soul, 


ghosts which rose 


Such as sometimes he kntnvs, who 


l'"ioui every darklinc; copse showed 


meets the gaze. 


thin and pale — 


l\I\ile, uncomplaining yet niost pitiful, 


Thinner and paler far than those I left 


0( one whom Nature, by some secret 


In agony ; even as I'lty seems to wear 


spite, 


A thinner form than J-'ear. 


lias niaimed and left imperfect ; or the 


Not caged alone 


])ain 


Like those the avenging J-'uries jxngcd 


Which fills a poet's eyes. Uenealh his 


we re these, 


r.,be 


Niir that dim land as those Mack 


\ seemed to sec the scar of cruel stripes, 


cave tnous dei)llis 


Too hastdy concealed. N'et was he 


W'lieie no hope comes. fair souls 


not 


woe they and white 


Wholly unhappy, but from o\it the 


Whom there I saw, waiting as we shall 


C( )re 


wail, 


Of sufiering Howed a secret spring of 


The Ijcatific Knd, but thin and pale 


j'>y» 


As the yoang faith which made them , 


Which mocked the droughts of h'ate, 


touched a little 


and left him glad 


lly the sad memories of the earth , 


And glorying in his sorrow. As I 


made glad 


ga/.ed 


A little by past joys: no more; and 


He raised his silent llute, and, half 


wrapt 


ashamed, 


In musing on the brief i)lay i)la)ed by 


IJlew a soft note ; and as I stayed 


them 


awhile 


Upon the livrly earth, yet ignorant 


1 heaid him thus discourse — 


Uf the long lapse ol years, and what 


" The llute is sweet 


had been 


1\) gods and men, but sweeter far the 


Since Ihey too breathed Life's air, or if 


ly.e 


they knew 


Ami voice of a true singer. Shall T 


Keeping some echo only ; but their 


fear 


pain 


To tell of that gieat trial, when I 


Was fainter than theii joy, ami a gieat 


strove 


liopc 


And Pho'bus eon(iuered? Nay, no 


Like ours possessed them dimly. 


shame it is 



MARSYAS. 



79 



To bow to an immortal melody ; 
But glory. 

Once among the Phrygian hills 
I lay a-musing, — while the silly sheep 
Wandered among the thyme — upon the 

bank 
Of a clear mountain stream, beneath 

the pines, 
Safe hidden from the noon. A dreamy 

haze 
Played on the uplands, but the hills 

were clear 
In sunlight, and no cloud was on the 

sky. 
It was the time when a deep silence 

comes 
Upon the summer earth, and all the 

birds 
Have ceased from singing, and the 

world is still 
As midnight, and if any live thing 

move — • 
Some fur-clad creature, or cool gliding 

snake — 
Within the pipy overgrowth of weeds, 
The ear can catch the rustle, and the 

trees 
And earth and air are listening. As I 

lay. 
Faintly, as in a dream, I seemed to 

hear 
A tender music, like the ^olian 

chords, 
Sound low within the woodland, whence 

the stream, 
Flowed full, yet silent. Long, with 

ear to ground, 
I hearkened ; and the sweet strain, 

fuller grown, 
Rounder and clearer came, and danced 

along 
In mirthful measure now, and now 

grown grave 



In dying falls, and sweeter and more 

clear. 
Tripping at nuptials and high revelry. 
Wailing at burials, rapt in soaring 

thoughts. 
Chanting strange sea-tales full of 

mystery. 
Touching all chords of being, life and 

death, 
Now rose, now sank, and always was 

divine, 
So strange the music came. 

Till, as I lay 
Enraptured, shrill a sudden discord 

rang, 
Then all the sounds were still. A light- 
ning-flash, 
As from a sun-kissed gem, revealed the 

wood. 
A noise of water smitten, and on the 

heights 
A fair white fleece of cloud, which 

swiftly climbed 
Into the furthest heaven. Then, as I 

mused. 
Knowing a parting goddess, straight I 

saw 
A wayward splendour float ujwn the 

stream, 
And knew it for this jewelled flute, 

which paused 
Before me on an eddy. It I snatched 
Eager, and to my ardent lips I bore 
The wonder, and behold, with the fust 

breath — 
The first warm human breath, the silent 

strains. 
The half-drowned notes which late the 

goddess blew. 
Revived, and sounded clearer, sweeter 

far 
Than mortal skill could make. So with 

delight 



[8o 



MARSYAS. 



I left my flocks to wander o'er the 

wastes 
Untended, and the wolves and eagles 

seized 
The tender lambs, but I was for my 

art- 
Nought else; and though the high- 
pitched notes divine 
Grew faint, yet something lingered, and 

at last 
So sweet a note I sounded of my skill, 
That all the Phrygian highlands, all 

the far 
Hill villages, were fain to hear the 

strain. 
Which the mad shepherd made. 

So, overbold, 
And rapt in my new art, at last I dared 
To challenge Phoebus' self. 

'Twas a fair day 
When sudden, on the mountain side, I 

saw 
A train of fleecy clouds in a white 

band 
Descending. Down the gleaming 

pinnacles 
And difficult crags they floated, and the 

arch. 
Drawn with its thousand rays against 

the sun, 
Hung like a glory o'er them. Midst 

the pines 
They clothed themselves with form, and 

straight I knew 
The immortals. Young Apollo, with 

his lyre, 
Kissed by the sun, and all the Muses 

clad 
In robes of gleaming white ; then a 

great fear, 
Yet mixed with joy, assailed me, for T 

knew 
Myselt a mortal equalled with the gods. 



Ah me ! how fair they were ! how 
fair and dread 
In face and form, they showed, when 

now they stayed 
Upon the thymy slope, and the young 

god 
Lay with his choir around him, beautiful 
And bold as Youth and Dawn ! There 

was no cloud 
Upon the sky, nor any sound at all 
When I began my strain. No coward 

fear 
Of what might come restrained me; 

but an awe 
Of those immortal eyes and ears divine 
Looking and listening. All the earth 

seemed full 
Of ears for me alone — the woods, the 

fields. 
The hills, the skies were listening. 

Scarce a sound 
My flute might make ; such subtle 

harmonies 
The silence seemed to weave round me 

and flout 
The half unuttered thought. Till last 

I blew, 
As now, a hesitating note, and lo ! 
The breath divine, lingering on mortal 

lips. 
Hurried my soul along to such fair 

rhymes. 
Sweeter than wont, that swift I knew 

my life 
Rise up within me, and expand, and 

all 
The human, which so nearly is divine, 
Was glorified, and on the Muses' 

lips. 
And in their lovely eyes, I saw a 

fair 
Approval, and my soul in me was 
glad. 



MARSYAS. 



i8i 



For all the strains I blew were strains 

of love — 
Love striving, love triumphant, love 

that lies 
Within beloved arms, and wreathes his 

locks 
With flowers, and lets the world go by 

and sings 
Unheeding; and I saw a kindly gleam 
Within the Muses' eyes, who were 

indeed, 
Women, though god-like. 

But upon the face 
Of the young Sun-god only haughty 

scorn 
Sate, and he swiftly struck his golden 

lyre. 
And played the Song of Life ; and lo, 

I knew 
My strain, how earthy ! Oh, to hear 

the young 
Apollo playing ! and the hidden cells 
And chambers of the universe displayed 
Before the charmed sound ! I seemed 

to float 
In some enchanted cave, where the 

wave dips 
In from the sunlit sea, and floods its 

depths 
With reflex hues of heaven. My soul 

was rapt 
By that I heard, and dared to wish no 

more 
For victory ; and yet because the sound 
Of music that is born of human breath 
Comes straighter from the soul than any 

strain 
The hand alone can make ; therefore I 

knew, 
With a mixed thrill of pity and delight. 
The nine immortal Sisters hardly 

touched 
By that fine strain of music, as by mine. 



And when the high lay trembled to its 

close. 
Still doubting. 

Then upon the Sun-god"s face 
There passed a cold proud smile. He 

swept his lyre 
Once more, then laid it down, and with 

clear voice. 
The voice of godhead, sang. Oh, 

ecstasy, 
Oh happiness of him who once has 

heard 
Apollo singing ! For his ears the sound 
Of grosser music dies, and all the earth 
Is full of subtle undertones, which 

change 
The listener and transform him. As 

he sang — 
Of what I know not, but the music 

touched 
Each chord of being — I felt my secret 

life 
Stand open to it, as the parched earth 

yawns 
To drink the summer rain ; and at the 

call 
Of those refreshing waters, all my 

thought 
Stir from its dark and sunless depths, 

and burst 
Into sweet, odorous flowers, and from 

their wells 
Deep call to deep, and all the mystery 
Of all that is, laid open. As he sang, 
I saw the Nine, with lovely pitying 

eyes. 
Sign 'He has conquered.' Yet I felt 

no pang 
Of fear, only deep joy that I had heard 
Such music while I lived, even though 

it brought 
Torture and death. For what were it 

to lie 



1 82 



MARSYAS. 



Sleek, crowned with roses, drinking 


That suffering weds with song, from 


vulgar praise, 


him of old, 


And surfeited with offerings, the dull 


Who solaced his blank darkness with 


gift 


his lyre ; 


Of ignorant hands — all which I might 


Through all the story of neglect and 


have known — 


scorn. 


To this diviner failure? Godlike 'tis 


Necessity, sheer hunger, early death, 


To climb upon the icy ledge, and fall 


Which smite the singer still. Not only 


Where other footsteps dare not. So I 


those 


knew 


Who keep clear accents of the voice 


My fate, and it was near. 


divine 


For to a pine 


Are honourable — they are happy, in- 


They bound me willing, and with cruel 


deed, 


stripes 


Whate'er the world has held — but those 


Tore me, and took my life. 


who hear 


But from my blood 


Some fair faint echoes, though the 


Was born the stream of song, and on 


crowd be deaf, 


its flow 


And see the white gods' garments on 


My poor flute, to the clear swift river 


the hills, 


borne, 


Which the crowd sees not, though they 


Floated, and thence adown a lordlier 


may not find 


tide 


Fit music for their thought ; they too 


Into the deep, wide sea. I do not 


are blest, 


blame 


Not pitiable. Not from arrogant 


Phoebus, or Nature which has set this 


pride 


bar 


Nor over-boldness fail they who have 


Betwixt success and failure, for I know 


striven 


How far high failure overleaps the 


To tell what they have heard, with 


bound 


voice too weak 


Of low successes. Only suftering draws 


For such high message. More it is 


The inner heart of song and can elicit 


than ease. 


The perfumes of the soul. 'Tvvere not 


Palace and pomp, honours and luxuries. 


enough 


To have seen white Presences upon the 


To fail, for that were happiness to 


hills. 


him 


To have heard the voices of the Eternal 


Who ever upward looks with reverent 


Gods." 


eye 




And seeks but to admire. So^ since 


So spake he, and I seemed to look on 


the race 


him. 


Of bards soars highest ; as who seek to 


Whose sad young eyes grow on us from 


show 


the page 


Our lives as in a glass ; therefore it 


Of his own verse : who did himself to 


comes 


death : 



ANDROMEDA. 



183 



Or whom the dullard slew : or whont 


The harvest to the ocean ; all the land 


the sea 


Was wasted. A great serpent from the 


Rapt from us : and I passed without a 


deep. 


word, 


Lifting his horrible head above their 


Slow, grave, with many musings. 


homes, 




Devoured the children. And the people 




prayed 




In vain to careless gods. 




On that dear land, 


Then I came 


Which now was turned into a sullen 


On one a maiden, meek with folded 


sea, 


hands, 


Gazing in safety from the stately towers 


vSeated against a rugged face of cliff, 


Of my sire's palace, I, a princess, saw, 


In silent thought. Anon she raised her 


Lapt in soft luxury, within my bower 


arms, 


The wreck of humble homes come 


Her gleaming arms, above her on the 


whirling by. 


rock, 


The drowning, bleating flocks, the 


With hands which clasped each other, 


bellowing herds. 


till she showed 


The grain scarce husbanded by toiling 


As in a statue, and her white robe fell 


hands 


Down from her maiden shoulders, and 


Upon the sunlit plain, rush to the sea, 


I knew 


With floating corpses. On the rain- 


The fair form as it seemed chained to 


swept hills 


the stone 


The remnant of the people huddled 


By some invisible gyves, and named 


close. 


her name : 


Homeless and starving. All my being 


And then she raised her frightened eyes 


was filled 


to mine 


With pity for them, and I joyed to 


As one who, long expecting some great 


give 


fear, 


What food and shelter and compas- 


Scarce sees deliverance come. But 


sionate hands 


when she saw 


Of woman might. I took the little 


Only a kindly glance, a softer look 


ones 


Came in them, and she answered to my 


And clasped them shivering to the 


thought 


virgin breast 


With a sweet voice and low. 


Which knew no other touch but theirs. 


" I did but muse 


and gave 


Upon the painful past, long dead and 


Raiment and food. My sire, not stern 


done. 


to me, 


Forgetting I was saved. 


Smiled on me as he saw. My gentle 


The angry clouds 


mother. 


Burst always on the low flat plains, and 


Who loved me with a closer love than 


swept 


binds 



1 84 



ANDROMEDA. 



A mother to her son ; and sunned her- 
self 


But my sire 
Hid his face from me, and the crowd of 


In my fresh beauty, seeing in my young 
gaze 


priests 
And nobles looked not at us. And no 


Her own fair vanished youth ; doted on 
me, 


word 
Was spoken till at last one drew a 


And fain had kept my eyes from the 
sad sights 


scroll 
And gave it to the queen, who straight- 


That pained them. But my heart was 
faint in me, 


way swooned, 
Having read it, on my breast, and then 


Seeing the ineffable miseries of life, 
And that mysterious anger of the gods, 
And helpless to allay them. All in 
vain 


I saw, 
I the young girl whose soft life scarcely 

knew 
Shadow of sorrow, I whose heart was 


Were prayer and supplicalion, all in 
vain 


full 
Of pity for the rest, what doom was 


The costly victims steamed. The 

vengeful clouds 
Hid the fierce .sky, and still the ruin 


mine. 
r think I hardly knew in that dread 


came. 


hour 


And wallowing his grim length within 
the flood, 


The fear that came anon ; I was trans- 
formed 


Over the ravaged fields and homeless 

homes. 
The fell sea-monster raged, sating his 

jaws 
With blood and lapine. 


Into a champion of my race, made 

strong 
With a new courage, glorying to meet. 
In all the ecstasy of sacrifice, 
Death face to face. Some god, I know 


Then to the dread shrine 
Of Amnion went the priests, and 

reverend chiefs 
Of all the nation. White-robed, at 


not who, 
O'erspread me, and despite my mother's 

tears 
And my stern father's grief, I met my 


their head. 


fate 


Went slow my royal sire. The oracle 
Spoke clear, not as ofttimes in words 
obscure. 


Unshrinking. 

When the moon rose clear from cloud 
Once more again over the midnight sea, 


Ambiguous. And as we stood to meet 
The suppliants — she who bare me, with 
her head 


And that vast watery plain, Avhere were 

before 
Hundreds of hapjiy homes, and well- 


Upon my neck — we cheerful and with 

song 
Welcomed their swift return ; auguring 

well 
From such a quick-sped mission. 


tilled fields, 
And purple vineyards ; from my father's 

towers 
The white procession went along the 

paths, 



ANDROMEDA. 



185 



The high cliff paths, which well I loved 


There stood I in the moonlight, left 


of old, 


alone 


Among the myrtles. Priests with cen- 


Against the sea-worn rock. Hardly I 


sers went 


knew. 


And offerings, robed in white, and 


Seeing only the bright moon and 


round their brows 


summer sea. 


The sacred fillet. With his nobles 


Which gently heaved and surged, and 


walked 


kissed the ledge 


My sire with breaking heart. My 


With smooth warm tides, what fate was 


mother clung 


mine. I seemed. 


To me the victim, and the young girls 


Soothed by the quiet, to be resting still 


went 


Within my maiden chamber, and to 


With wailing and with tears. A solemn 


watch 


strain 


The moonlight thro' my lattice. Then 


The soft flutes sounded, as we went by 


again 


night 


Fear came, and then the pride of sacri- 


To a wild headland,rock-basedin thesea. 


fice 




Filled me, as on the high cliff lawns I 


There on a sea-worn rock, upon the 


heard 


verge, 


The wailing cries, the chanted liturgies, 


To some rude stanchions, high above 


And knew me bound forsaken to the 


my head. 


rock. 


They bound me. Out at sea, a black 


And saw the monster-haunted depths of 


reef rose, 


sea. 


Washed by the constant surge, therein 




a cave 


So all night long upon the sandy 


Sheltered deep down the monster. The 


shores 


sad queen 


I heard the hollow murmur of the wave. 


Would scarcely leave me, though the 


And all night long the hidden sea caves 


priests shrunk back 


made 


In terror. Last, torn from my endless 


A ghostly echo ; and the sea birds 


kiss, 


mewed 


Swooning they bore her upwards. All 


Around me ; once 1 heard a mocking 


my robe 


laugh, 


Fell from my lifted arms, and left dis- 


As of some scornful Nereid ; once the 


played 


waters 


The virgin treasure of my breasts ; and 


Broke louder on the scarped reefs, and 


then 


ebbed 


The white procession through the moon- 


As if the monster coming ; but again 


light streamed 


He came not, and the dead moon sank, 


Upwards, and soon their soft flutes 


and still 


sounded low 


Only upon the cliffs the wails, the 


Upon the high lawns, leaving me alone. 


chants, 



ib6 



ANDROMEDA. 



And I forsaken on my sea-worn rock, 
And lo, the monster-haunted deptlis of 
sea. 

Till at the dead dark hour before the 

dawn, 
When sick men die, and scarcely fear 

itself 
Bore up my weary eyelids, a great surge 
Burst on the rock, and slowly, as it 

seemed, 
The sea sucked downward to its depths, 

laid bare 
The hidden reefs, and then before my 

eyes — 
Oh, terrible ! a huge and loathsome 

snake 
Lifted his dreadful crest and scaly side 
Above the wave, in bulk and length so 

large. 
Coil after hideous coil, that scarce the 

eye 
Could measure its full horror ; the great 

jaws 
Dropped as with gore ; the large and 

furious eyes 
Were fired with blood and lust. Nearer 

he came, 
And slowly, with a devilish glare, more 

near, 
Till his hot fcetor choked me, and his 

tongue, 
Forked horribly from out his poisonous 

jaws, 
Played lightning-like around me. For 

awhile 
I swooned, and when I knew my life 

again. 
Death's bitterness was past. 

Then with a bound 
Leaped up the broad red sun above the 

sea. 
And lit the horrid fulgour of his scales, 



.\nd struck upon the rock ; and as I 

turned 
My head in the last agony of death, 
I knew a brilliant sunbeam swiftly 

leaping 
Downward from crag to crag, and felt 

new hope 
Where all was hopeless. On the hills 

a shout 
Of joy, and on the rocks the ring of 

mail ; 
And while the hungry serpent's gloating 

eyes 
Were fixed on me, a knight in casque 

of gold 
And blazing shield, who with his flash- 
ing blade 
Fell on the monster. Long tlie conflict 

raged. 
Till all the rocks were red with blood 

and slime, 
And yet my champion from those 

horrible jaws 
And dreadful coils was scatheless. Zeus 

his sire 
Protected, and the awful shield he 

bore 
Withered the monster's life and left him 

cold ; 
Dragging his helpless length and 

grovelling crest : 
And o'er his glaring eyes the films of 

death 
Crept, and his writhing flank and hiss 

of hate 
The great deep swallowed down, and 

blood and spume 
Rose on the waves ; and a strange 

wailing cry 
Resounded o'er the waters, and the 

sea 
Bellowed within its hollow-sounding 

caves. 



ANDROMEDA. 



187 



Then knew I, I was saved, and with 

nie all 
The people. From my wrists he loosed 

the gyves, 
My hero; and within his godlike arms 
Bore me by slippery rock and difficult 

path, 
To where my mother prayed. There 

was no need 
To ask my love. Without a spoken 

Avord 
Love lit his fires within me. My young 

heart 
Went forth. Love calling, and I gave 

him all. 

Dost thou then wonder that the 

memory 
Of this supreme brief moment lingers 

still, 
While all the happy uneventful years 
Of wedded life, and all the fair young 

growth 
Of offspring, and the tranquil later joys. 
Nay, even the fierce eventful fight which 

raged 
When we were wedded, fade and are 

deceased, 
Lost in the irrecoverable past ? 
Nay, 'tis not strange. Always the 

memory 
Of overwhelming perils or great joys. 
Avoided or enjoyed, writes its own 

trace 
With such deep characters upon our 

lives, 
That all the rest are blotted. In this 

place, 
Where is not action, thought, or count 

of time. 
It is not weary as it were on earth. 
To dwell on these old memories. Time 

is born 



Of dawns and sunsets, days that wax 

and wane 
x\nd stamp themselves upon the yielding 

face 
Of fleeting human life ; but here there is 
Morning nor evening, act nor suffering. 
But only one unchanging Present holds 
Our being suspended. One blest day 

indeed, 
Or centuries ago or yesterday. 
There came among us one who was 

Divine, 
Not as our gods, joyous and breathing 

strength 
And careless life, but crowned with a 

new crown 
Of suffering, and a great light came 

with him, 
And with him he brought Time and a 

new sense 
Of dim, long- vanished years ; and since 

he passed 
I seem to see new meaning in my fate. 
And all the deeds I tell of. Evermore 
The young life comes, bound to the 

cruel rocks 
Alone. Before it the unfathomed sea 
Smiles, filled with monstrous growths 

that wait to take 
Its innocence. P^ar off the voice and 

hand 
Of love kneel by in agony, and entreat 
The seeming careless gods. Still when 

the deep 
Is smoothest, lo, the deadly fangs and 

coils 
Lurk near, to smite with death. And 

down the crags 
Of Duty, like a sudden sunbeam, springs 
Some golden soul half mortal, half 

divine, 
Heaven-sent, and breaks the cliain ; and 

evermore 



i88 



ACT/EON. 



For sacrifice they die, through sacrifice 


I seemed to question of his fate, and he 


They live, and are for others, and no 


Answered me thus : 


grief 


" 'Twas one hot afternoon 


Which smites the humblest but rever- 


That I, a hunter, wearied with my day, 


berates 


Heard my hounds baying fainter on 


Thro' all the close-set files of life, and 


the hills. 


takes 


Led by the flying hart ; and when the 


The princely soul that from its royal 


sound 


towers 


Faded and all was still, I turned to seek, 


Looks down and sees the sorrow. 


O'ercome by heat and thirst, a little 


Sir, farewell! 


glade. 


If thou shouldst meet my children on 


Beloved of old, where, in the shadowy 


the earth 


wood. 


Or here, for maybe it is long ago 


The clear cold crystal of a mossy pool 


Since I and they were living, say to 


Lipped the soft emerald marge, and 


them 


gave again 


I only muse a little here, and wait 


The flower- starred lawn where ofttimes 


The waking." 


overspent 


And her lifted arms sank down 


I lay upon the grass and careless bathed 


Upon her knees, and as I passed I saw 


My limbs in the sweet lymph. 


her 


But as I n eared 


Gazing with soft rapt eyes, and on her 


The hollow, sudden through the leaves 


lips 


I saw 


A smile as of a saint. 


A throng of wood-nymphs fair, sporting 




undraped 




Round one, a goddess. She with timid 




hand 




Loosened her zone, and glancing round 


And then T saw 


let fall 


A manly hunter pace along the lea. 


Her robe from neck and bosom, pure 


His bow upon his shoulder, and his 


and bright, 


spear 


(For it was Dian's self I saw, none 


Poised idly in his hand : the face and 


else) 


form 


As when she frees her from a fleece of 


Of vigorous youth ; but in the full 


cloud 


brown eyes 


And swims along the deep blue sea of 


A timorous gaze as of a hunted hart. 


heaven 


Brute-like, yet human still, even as the 


On sweet June nights. Silent awhile I 


Faun 


stood, 


Of old, the dumb brute passing into 


Rooted with awe, and fain had turned 


man, 


to fly. 


And dowered with double nature. As 


But feared by careless footstep to 


he came 


affright 



ACTION. 



Those chaste cold eyes. Great awe 

and reverence 
Held me, and fear ; then Love with 

passing wing 
Fanned me, and held my eyes, and 

checked my breath, 
Signing ' Beware ! ' 

So for a time I watched. 
Breathless as one a brooding niglitmare 

holds. 
Who fleeth some great fear, yet fleeth 

not ; 
Till the last flutter of lawn, and veil no 

more 
Obscured, and all the beauty of my 

dreams 
Assailed my sense. But ere I raised 

my eyes, 
As one who fain would look and see 

the sun, 
The first glance dazed my brain. Only 

I knew 
The perfect outline flow in tender 

curves, 
To break in doubled charms ; only a 

haze 
Of creamy white, and dimpled depths 

divine : 
And then no more. For lo ! a sudden 

chill. 
And such thick mist as shuts the hills 

at eve, 
Oppressed me gazing ; and a heaven- 
sent shame. 
An awe, a fear, a reverence for the 

unknown, 
Froze all the springs of will and left 

me cold, 
And blinded all the longings of my eyes, 
Leaving such dim reflection still as 

mocks 
Him who has looked on a great light, 

and keeps 



On his closed eyes the image. Pre- 
sently, 
My fainting soul, safe hidden for awhile 
Deep in Life's mystic shades, renewed 

herself. 
And straight, the innocent brute within 

the man 
Bore on me, and with half-averted eye 
I gazed upon the secret. 

As I looked, 
A radiance, white as beamed the frosty 

moon 
On the mad boy and slew him, beamed 

on me ; 
Made chill my pulses, checked my life 

and heat ; 
Transformed me, withered all my soul, 

and left 
My being burnt out. For lo ! the 

dreadful eyes 
Of Godhead met my gaze, and through 

the mask 
And thick disguise of sense, as through 

a wood. 
Pierced to my life. Then suddenly I 

knew 
An altered nature, touched by no desire 
For that which showed so lovely, but 

declined 
To lower levels. Nought of fear or awe, 
Nothing of love was mine. Wide-eyed 

I gazed. 
But saw no spiritual beam to blight 
My brain with too much beauty, no 

undraped 
And awful majesty ; only a brute, 
Dumb charm, like that which draws 

the brute to it, 
Unknowing it is drawn. So gradually 
I knew a dull content o'ercloud my 

sense, 
And unabashed I gazed, like that duml) 

bird 



[90 



ACTJEON. 



Which thinks no thouj^jht and speaks 


That once I ruled them, — brute pur- 


no word, yet fronts 


suing brute. 


The sun that blinded Homer — all my 


And I the quarry? Then I turned and 


fear 


■fled,— 


Sunk with my shame, in a base happi- 


If it was I indeed that feared and fled — 


ness. 


Down the long glades, and through the 




tangled brakes. 


But as I gazed, and careless turned 


Where scarce the sunlight pierced ; 


and passed 


fled on and on, 


Through the thick wood, forgetting 


And panted, self-pursued. But ever- 


what had been, 


more 


And thinking thoughts no longer, swift 


The dissonant music which I knew so 


there came 


sweet. 


A mortal terror : voices that I knew, 


When by the windy hills, the echoing 


My own hounds' hayings that I loved 


vales. 


before, 


And whispering pines it rang, now far. 


As with them often o'er the purple hills 


now near, 


I chased the flying hart from slope to 


As from my rushing steed I leant and 


slope, 


cheered 


Before the slow sun climbed the 


With voice and horn the chase — this 


Eastern peaks, 


brought to me 


Until the swift sun smote the Western 


Fear of I knew not what, which bade 


plain ; 


me fly. 


Whom often I had cheered by voice 


Fly always, fly ; but when my heart 


and glance. 


stood still. 


Whom often I had checked with hand 


And all my limbs were stiffened as I fled, 


and thong. 


Just as the white moon ghost- like 


Grim followers, like the passions, firing 


climbed the sky, 


me ; 


Nearer they came and nearer, baying 


True servants, like the strong nerves. 


loud. 


urging me 


With bloodshot eyes and red jaws 


On many a fruitless chase, to find and 


dripping foam j 


take 


And when I strove to check their 


Some too swift-fleeting beauty ; faithful 


savagery, 


feet 


Speaking with words; no voice articu- 


And tongues, obedient always : these 


late came, 


I knew. 


Only a dumb, low bleat. Then all the 


Clothed with a new-born force and 


throng 


fiercer grown. 


Leapt swift on me, and tare me as I lay. 


And stronger than their master ; and 


And left me man again. 


I thought. 


Wherefore I walk 


What if they tare me with their jaws, 


Along these dim fields peopled with 


nor cai-ed 


the ghosts 



ACTAiON. 



191 



Of heroes who have left the ways of 


With jaws unsated and a thirst for act, 


earth 


Bears down on him with clanging 


For this faint ghost of them. Some- 


shock, and whelms 


times I think, 


His prize and him in ruin. 


Pondering on what has been, that all 


And sometimes 


my days 


I seem to myself a thinker, who at last, 


Were shadows, all my life an allegory ; 


Amid the chase and capture of low ends, 


And, though 1 know sometimes some 


Pausing by some cold well of hidden 


fainter gleam 


thought 


Of the old beauty move me, and some- 


Comes on some perfect truth, and 


times 


looks and looks 


Some beat of the old pulses ; that my 


Till the fair vision blinds him. And 


fate, 


the sum 


For ever hurrying on in hot pursuit, 


Of all his lower self pursuing him. 


To fall at length self-slain, was but a 


The strong brute forces, the unchecked 


tale 


desires, 


Writ large by Zeus upon a mortal life. 


Finding him bound and speechless. 


Writ large, and yet a riddle. For 


deem him now 


sometimes 


No more their master, but some soul- 


I read its meannig thus : Life is a chase, 


less thing ; 


And Man the hunter, always following 


And leap on him, and seize him, and 


on, 


possess 


With hounds of rushing thought or 


His life, till 'hiougli death's gate he 


fiery sense. 


pass to life, 


Some hidden truth or beauty, fleeting 


And, his own ghost, revives. Put 


still 


looks no more 


For ever through the thick-leaved 


Upon the truth unveiled, save through 


coverts deep 


a cloud 


And wind-worn wolds of time. And 


Of creed and faith and longing, which 


if he turn 


shall change 


A moment from the hot pursuit to seize 


One day to perfect knowledge. 


Some chance-brought sweetness, other 


But whoe'er 


than the search 


Shall read the riddle of my life, I walk 


To which his soul is set, — some dal- 


In this dim land amid dim ghosts of 


liance, 


kings, 


Some outward shape o{ Art, some 


As one day thou shalt ; meantime, fare 


lower love, 


thou well." 


Some charm of wealth and sleek con- 




tent and home, — 


Then passed he ; and I marked him 


Then, if he check an instant, the swift 


slowly go 


chase 


Along the winding ways of that weird 


Of fierce untempered energies wliich 


land. 


pursue^ 


And vanish in a wood. 



192 



HELEN. 



And next I knew 
A woman perfect as a young man's 

dream, 
And breathing as it seemed the nimble 

air 
Of the fair days of old, when man was 

young 
And life an Epic. Round the lips a 

smile 
Subtle and deep and sweet as hers who 

looks 
From the old painter's canvas, and 

derides 
Life and the riddle of things, the aim- 
less strife, 
The folly of Love, as who has proved 

it all, 
Enjoyed and suffered. In the lovely 

eyes 
A weary look, no other than the gaze 
Which ofttimes as the rapid chariot 

whirls, 
And ofttimes by the glaring midnight 

streets, 
Gleams out and chills our thought. 

And yet not guilt 
Nor sorrow was it ; only weariness, 
No more, and still most lovely. As I 

named 
Her name in haste, she looked with 

half surprise. 
And thus she seemed to speak : 

" What ? Dost thou know, 
Thou too, the fatal glances which be- 
guiled 
Those strong rude chiefs of old ? Has 

not the gloom 
Of this dim land withdrawn from out 
mine eyes 



The glamour which once filled them ? 

Does my cheek 
Retain the round of youth and still 

defy 
The wear of immemorial centuries ? 
And this low voice, long silent, keeps 

it still 
The music of old time? Aye, in thine 

eyes 
I read it, and within thine eyes I see 
Thou knowest me, and the story of my 

life 
Sung by the blind old bard when I was 

dead, 
And all my lovers dust. I know thee 

not, 
Thee nor thy gods, yet would I soothly 

swear 
I was not all to blame for what has 

been, 
The long fight, the swift death, the 

woes, the tears, 
The brave lives spent, the humble 

homes uptorn, 
To gain one poor fair face. It was 

not I 
That curved these lips into this subtle 

smile, 
Or gave these eyes their fire, nor yet 

made round 
This supple frame. It was not I, but 

Love, 
Love mirroring himself in all things 

fair, 
Love that projects himself upon a life. 
And dotes on his own image. 

Ah ! the days, 
The weary years of Love and feasts and 

gold. 
The hurried flights, the din of clatter- 
ing hoofs 
At midnight, when the heroes dared 
for me, 



HELEN. 



193 



And bove me o'er the hills ; the swift 

pursuits 
Baffled and lost ; or when from isle to 

isle 
The high-oared galley spread its wings 

and rose ' 
Over the swelling surges, and I saw, 
Time after time, the scarce familiar 

town, 
The shadowy hills, the well-loved 

palaces, 
The gleaming temples fade, and all for 

me, 
Me the dead prize, the shell, the soul- 
less ghost. 
The husk of a true woman ; the fond 

words 
Wasted on careless ears, that feigned 

to hear, 
Of love to me unloving ; the rich feasts, 
The silken dalliance and soft luxury. 
The fair observance and high reverence 
For me who cared not, to whatever 

land 
My kingly lover snatched me. I have 

known 
How small a fence Love sets between 

the king 
And the strong hind, who breeds his 

brood, and dies 
Upon the field he tills. I have ex- 
changed 
People for people, crown for glittering 

crown. 
Through every change a queen, and 

held my state 
Hateful, and sickened in my soul to lie 
Stretched on soft cushions to the lutes' 

low sound, 
While on the wasted fields the clang of 

arms 
Rang, and the foemen perished, and 

swift death, 



Hunger, and plague, and every phase 

of woe 
Vexed all the land for me. I have 

heard the curse 
Unspoken, when the wife widowed for 

me 
Clasped to her heart her orphans starved 

for me ; 
As I swept proudly by. I have prayed 

the gods, 
Hating my own fair face which wrought 

such woe, 
Some plague divine might light on it 

and leave 
My curse a ruin. Yet I think indeed 
They had not cursed but pitied, those 

true wives 
Who mourned their humble lords, and 

straining felt 
The innocent thrill which swells the 

mother's heart 
Who clasps her growing boy ; had they 

but known 
The lifeless life, the pain of hypocrite 

smiles. 
The dead load of caresses simulated, 
When Love stands shuddering by to see 

his fires 
Lit for the shrine of gold. What if 

they felt 
The weariness of loveless love which 

grew 
And through the jealous palace portals 

seized 
The caged unloving woman, sick of 

toys. 
Sick of her gilded chains, her ease, 

herself. 
Till for sheer weariness she flew to mee 
Some new unloved seducer ? What if 

they knew 
No childish loving hands, or worse than 

all, 

o 



194 



HELEN. 



Had borne them sullen to a sire un- 


Came o'er me, lest he were some youth- 


loved, 


ful god 


And left them without pain ? I might 


Disguised in shape of man, so fair he 


have been, 


was; 


I too, a loving mother and chaste v^^ife, 


But when he spoke, the kindly face was 


Had Fate so willed. 


full 


For I remember well 


Of manhood, and the large eyes full of 


How one day straying from my father's 


fire 


halls 


Drew me without a word, and all the 


Seeking anemones and violets, 


flowers 


A girl in Spring-time, when the heart 


Fell from me, and the little milk-white 


makes Spring 


lamb 


Within the buddmg bosom, that I 


Strayed through the l^rake, and took 


came 


with it the white 


Of a sudden through a wood upon a 


Fair years of childhood. Time fulfilled 


bay, 


my being 


A little sunny land-locked bay, whose 


With passion like a cup, and with one 


banks 


kiss 


Sloped gently downward to the yellow 


Left me a woman. 


sand. 


Ah ! the precious hours, 


Where the blue wave creamed soft 


When on the warm bank crowned with 


with fairy foam. 


flowers we sate 


And oft the Nereids sported. As I 


And thought no harm, and his thin 


strayed 


reed pipe made 


Singing, with fresh-pulled violets in my 


Low music, and no witness of our love 


hair 


Intruded, but the tinkle of the flock 


And bosom, and my hands were full of 


Stole from the hill, and 'neath the 


flowers, 


odorous shade 


I came upon a little milk-white lamb, 


We dreamed away the day, and watched 


And took it in my arms and fondled it, 


• the waves 


And wreathed its neck with flowers. 


Smile shoreward, and beyond the 


and sang to it 


sylvan capes 


And kissed it, and the Spring was in 


The innumerable laughter of the sea ! 


my life, 




And I was glad. 


Ah youth and love ! So passed the 


And when I raised my eyes 


happy days 


Behold, a youthful shepherd with his 


Till twilight, and I stole as in a dream 


crook 


Homeward, and lived as m a happy 


Stood by me and regarded as I lay, 


dream. 


Tall, fair, with clustering curls, and 


And when they spoke answered as in a 


front that wore 


dream, 


A budding manhood. As I looked a 


And through the darkness saw, as in a 


fear 


glass, 



HELEN. 



195 



The happy, happy day, and thrilled and 

glowed 
And kept my love in sleep, and longed 

for dawn 
And scarcely stayed for hunger, and 

with morn 
Stole eager to the little wood, and fed 
My life with kisses. Ah ! the joyous 

days 
Of innocence, when Love was Queen 

in heaven. 
And nature unreproved ! Break they 

then still, 
Those azure circles, on a golden shore? 
Smiles there no glade upon the older 

earth 
Where spite of all, gray wisdom, and 

new gods. 
Young lovers dream within each other's 

arms 
Silent, by shadowy grove, or sunlit sea ? 

Ah days too fair to last ! There 

came a night 
When I lay longing for my love, and 

knew 
Sudden the clang of hoofs, the broken 

doors. 
The clash of swords, the shouts, the 

groans, the stain 
Of red upon the marble, the fixed gaze 
Of dead and dying eyes, — that was the 

time 
When first I looked on death, — and 

when I woke .^ 
From my deep swoon, I felt the night 

air cool 
Upon my brow, and the cold stars look 

down, 
As swift we galloped o'er the darkling 

plain ; 
And saw the chill sea glimpses slowly 

wake, 



With arms unknown around me. ^^'hen 

the dawn 
Broke swift, we panted on the pathless 

steeps. 
And so by plain and mountain till we 

came 
To Athens, where they kept me till I 

grew 
Fairer with every year, and many 

wooed. 
Heroes and chieftains, but I loved not 

one. 

And then the avengers came and 

snatched me back 
To Sparta. All the dark high-crested 

chiefs 
Of Argos wooed me, striving king 

with king 
For one fair foolish face, nor knew I 

kept 
No heart to give them. Vet since I 

was grown 
Weary of honeyed words and suit of 

love, 
I wedded a brave chief, dauntless and 

true. 
But what cared I ? I could not prize 

at all 
His honest service. I had grown so 

tired 
Of loving and of love, that when they 

brought 
News that the fairest shepherd on the 

hills, 
Having done himself to death for his 

lost love, 
Lay, like a lovely statue, cold and white 
Upon the golden sand, I hardly knew 
More than a passing pang. Love, like 

a flower. 
Love, springing up too tall in a young 

breast, 



HELEN. 



The growth of morning, Life's too 

scorching sun 
Had withered long ere noon. Love, 

like a flame 
On his own altar offering up my heart, 
Had burnt my being to ashes. 

Was it love 
That drew me then to Paris ? He was 

fair, 
I grant you, fairer than a summer morn. 
Fair with a woman's fairness, yet in 

arms 
A hero, but he never had my heart, 
Not love for him allured me, but the 

thirst 
For freedom, if in more than thought I 

erred. 
And was not rapt but willing. For my 

child 
Born to an unloved father, loved me 

not. 
The fresh sea called, the galleys plunged, 

and I 
Fled willing from my prison and the 

pain 
Of vmdesired caresses, and the wind 
Was fair, and on the third day as we 

sailed. 
My heart was glad within me when I 

saw 
The towers of Ilium rise beyond the 

wave. 

Ah, the long years, the melancholy 

years. 
The miserable melancholy years ! 
For soon the new grew old, and then I 

grew 
Weary of him, of all, of pomp and 

state 
And novel splendour. Vet at times I 

knew 
Some thrill of pride within me as I saw 



From those high walls, a prisoner and 

a foe. 
The swift ships flock at anchor in the 

bay. 
The hasty landing and the flash of arms, 
The lines of royal tents upon the plain, 
The close-shut gates, the chivalry within 
Issuing in all its pride to meet the shock 
Of the bold chiefs without ; so year by 

year 
The haughty challenge from the warring 

hosts 
Rang forth, and I with a divided heart 
Saw victory incline, now here, now 

there, 
And helpless marked the Argive chiefs 

I knew. 
The spouse I left, the princely loves of 

old, 
Now with each other strive, and now 

with Troy : 
The brave pomp of the morn, the fair 

strong limbs. 
The glittering panoply, the bold young 

hearts, 
Athirst for fame of war, and with the 

night 
The broken spear, the shattered helm, 

the plume 
Dyed red with blood, the ghastly dying 

face, 
And nerveless limbs laid lifeless. And 

I knew 
The stainless Hector whom J could 

have loved. 
But that a happy love made l)lind his 

eyes 
To all my baleful beauty ; fallen and 

dragged 
His noble, godlike head upon the sand 
By young Achilles' chariot ; him in turn 
Fallen and slain ; my fair false Paris 

slain ; 



HELEN. 



197 



Plague, famine, battle, raging now 


That is no other than the outward shell 


within. 


Of a once loving woman.' . 


And now without, for many a weary 


As I spake. 


year. 


My pity fired my eyes and flushed my 


Summer and winter, till I loathed to 


cheek 


live. 


With some soft charm ; and as I spread 


Who was indeed, as well thev said, the 


my hands, 


Hell 


The purple, glancing down a little, left 


Of men, and fleets, and cities. As I 


The marble of my breasts and one pink 


stood 


bud 


Upon the walls, ofttimes a longing 


Upon the gleaming snows. And as- 1 


came, 


looked 


Looking on rage, and fight, and blood. 


With a mixed pride and terror, I beheld 


and death. 


The brute rise up within them, and my 


To end it all, and dash me down and 


words 


die; 


Fall barren on them. So I sat apart, 


But no god helped me. Nay, one day 


Nor ever more looked forth, while every 


I mind 


day 


I would entreat them, ' Pray you. 


Brought its own woe. 


lords, be men. 


The melancholy years. 


What fatal charm is this which Ate 


The miserable melancholy years, 


gives 


Crept onward till the midnight terror 


To one poor foolish face ? Be strong, 


came. 


and turn 


And by the glare of burning streets I 


In peace, forget this glamour, get you 


saw 


home 


Palace and temple reel in ruin and fall. 


With all your fleets and armies, to the 


And the long-baffled legions, bursting 


land 


in 


I love no longer, where your faithful 


By gate and bastion, blunted sword and 


wives 


spear 


Pine widowed of their lords, and your 


With unresisted slaughter. From my 


young boys 


tower 


Grow wild to manhood. I have nought 


I saw the good old king ; his kindly 


to give. 


eyes 


No heart, nor prize of love for any 


In agony, and all his reverend hairs 


man. 


Dabbled with blood, as the fierce 


Nor recompense. I am the ghost alone 


foeman thrust 


Of the fair girl ye knew ; she still 


And stabbed him as he lay ; the youths, 


abides. 


the girls. 


If she still lives and is not wholly dead, 


Whom day by day I knew, their silken 


Stretched on a flowery bank upon the 


ease 


sea 


And royal luxury changed for blood 


In fair heroic Argos. Leave this form 


and tears. 



19^ 



HELEN. 



Haled forth to death or worse. Then 

a great hate 
Of life and fate seized on me, and I 

rose 
And rushed among them, crying, ' See, 

'tis I, 
I who have brought this evil ! Kill me ! 

kill 
The fury that is I, yet is not I ! 
And let my soul go outward through 

the wound 
Made clean by blood to Hades ! Let 

me die, 
Not these who did no wrong ! ' But 

not a hand 
Was raised, and all shrank back amazed, 

afraid, 
As from a goddess. Then I swooned 

and fell 
And knew no more, and when I woke 

I felt 
My husband's arms around me, and the 

wind 
Blew fair for Greece, and the beaked 

galley plunged ; 
And where the towers of Ilium rose of 

old, 
A pall of smoke above a glare of fire. 

What then in the near future .? 

Ten long years 
Bring youth and love to that deep 

summer-tide 
When the full noisy current of our 

lives 
Creeps dumb through wealth of flowers. 

I think I knew 
Somewhat of peace at last, with my 

good Lord 
Who loved too much, to palter with 

the past. 
Flushed with the present. Young Her- 

mione 



Had grown from child to woman. She 

was wed ; 
And was not I her mother? At the 

pomp 
Of solemn nuptials and requited love, 
I prayed she might be happy, happier 

far 
Than ever I was ; so in tranquil ease 
I lived a queen long time, and because 

wealth 
And high observance can make sweet 

our days 
When youth's swift joy is past, I did 

requite 
With what I might, not love, the 

kindly care 
Of him I loved not ; pomps and robes 

of price 
And chariots held me. But v/hen Fate 

cut short 
His life and love, his sons who were 

not mine 
Reigned in his stead, and hated me 

and mine : 
And knowing I was friendless, I sailed 

forth 
Once more across the sea, seeking for 

rest 
And shelter. Still I knew that in my 

eyes 
Love dwelt, and all the baleful charm 

of old 
Burned as of yore, scarce dimmed as 

yet by time : 
I saw it in the mirror of the sea, 
I saw it in the youthful seamen's 

eyes. 
And was half proud again I had such 

power 
Who now kept nothing else. So one 

calm eve, 
Behold, a sweet fair isle blushed like a 

rose 



HELEN. 



199 



Upon the summer sea ; there my swift 


Of wedlock was but half a life, what 


ship 


fiend 


Cast anchor, and they told me it was 


Came 'twixt my love and me, but that 


Rhodes. 


fair face ? 




What left his children orphans, but 


There, in a little wood above the sea. 


that face ? 


Like that dear wood of yore, 1 wandered 


And me a widow ? Fiend ! I have 


forth 


thee now ; 


Forlorn, and all my seamen were apart, 


Thou hast not long to live. I will 


And I, alone ; when at the close of day 


requite 


1 knew myself surrounded by strange 


Thy murders ; yet, oh fiend ! that art 


churls 


so fair, 


With angry eyes, and one who ordered 


Were it not haply better to deface 


them, 


Thy fatai loveliness, and leave thee 


A woman, whom I knew not, but who 


bare 


walked 


Of all thy baleful power? And yet I 


In mien and garb a queen. She, with 


doubt. 


the file 


And looking on thy face I doubt the 


Of hate within her eyes, ' Quick, bind 


more. 


her, men ! 


Lest all thy dower of beauty be the 


I know her ; bind her fast ! ' Then to 


gift 


the trunk 


Of Aphrodite, and I fear to fight 


Of a tall plane they bound me with 


Against the immortal Gods. ' 


rude cords 




That cut my arms. And meantime. 


Even with the word. 


far below. 


And she relenting, all the riddle of 


The sun was gilding fair with dying 


life 


rays 


Flashed through me, and the inextri- 


Isle after isle and purple wastes of sea. 


cable coil 




Of Being, and the immeasurable depths 


And then she signed to them, and all 


And irony of Fate, burst on my thought. 


withdrew 


And left me smiling in the eyes of 


Among the woods and left us, face to 


death. 


face. 


With this deep smile thou seest. Then 


Two women. Ere I spake, 'I know,' 


with a shriek 


she cried, 


The woman leapt on me, and with 


' I know that evil fairness. This it 


blind rage 


was, 


Strangled my life. And when she had 


Or ever he had come across my life. 


done the deed 


That made him cold to me, who had 


She swooned, and those her followers 


my love 


hasting back 


And left me half a heart, If all my 


Fell prone upon their knees before the 


life 


corpse 



HELEN. 



As to a goddess. Then one went and 

brought 
A sculptor, and within a jewelled shrine 
They set me in white marble, bound 

to a tree 
Of marble. And they came and knelt 

to me, 
Young men and maidens, through the 

secular years. 
While the old gods bore sway, but I 

was here, 
And now they kneel no longer, for the 

world 
Has gone from beauty. 

But I think, indeed, 
They well might worship still, for never 

yet 
Was any thought or thing of beauty 

born 
Except with suffering. That poor 

wretch who thought 
I injured her, stealing the foolish heart 
Which she prized but I could not, what 

knew she 
Of that I suffered ? She had loved her 

love, 
Though unrequited, and had borne to 

him 
Children who loved her. What if she 

had been 
Loved yet unloving : all the fire of love 
Burnt out before love's time in one 

brief blaze 
Of passion. Ah, poor fool ! I pity her, 
Being blest and yet unthankful, and 

forgive. 
Now that she is a ghost as I, the hand 
Which loosed my load of life. For 

scarce indeed 
Could any god who cares for mortal 

men 
Have ever kept me happy. I had tired 
Of simple loving, doubtless, as I tired 



Of splendour and being loved. There 

be some souls 
For which love is enough, content to 

bear 
From youth to age, from chesnut locks 

to gray 
The load of common, uneventful life. 
And penury. But I was not of these ; 
I know not now, if it were best indeed 
That I had reared my simple shepherd 

brood, 
And lived and died unknown in some 

poor hut 
Among the Argive hills ; or lived a 

queen 
As I did,' knowing every day that 

dawned 
Some high emprise and glorious, and 

in death 
To fill the world with song. Not the 

same meed 
The gods mete out for all, or She, the 

dread 
Necessity, who rules both gods and men. 
Some to dishonour, some to honour 

moulds. 
To happiness some, some to unhappi- 

ness. 
We are what Zeus has made us, dis- 
cords playing 
In the great music, but the harmony 
Is sweeter for them, and the great 

spheres ring 
In one accordant hymn. 

But thou, if e'er 
There come a daughter of thy love, oh 

pray 
To all thy gods, lest haply they should 

mar 
Her life with too great beauty ! " 

So she ceased, 
The fairest woman that the poet's 

dream 



EUR YD ICE. 



Or artist hand has fashioned. All the 

gloom 
Seemed lightened round her, and I 

heard the sound 
Of her melodious voice when all was 

still, 
And the dim twilight took her. 



Next there came 
Two who together walked : one with 

a lyre 
Of gold, which gave no sound ; the 

other hung 
Upon his breast, and closely clung to 

him, 
Spent in a tender longing. As they 

came, 
I heard her gentle voice recounting o'er 
Some ancient tale, and these the words 

she said : 

"Dear voice and lyre now silent, 

which I heard 
Across yon sullen river, bringing to me 
All my old life, while he, the ferry- 
man. 
Heard and obeyed, and the grim 

monster heard 
And fawned on you. Joyous thou 

cam'st and free 
Like a white sunbeam from the dear 

blithe earth, 
Where suns shone clear, and moons 

beamed bright, and streams 
Laughed with a rippling music, — nor as 

here 
The dumb stream stole, the veiled sky 

slept, the fields 
Were lost in twiUgbt. Like a truant 

breeze. 



Which steals in summer from the gates 

of dawn 
To kiss the fields of spice, and wakes 

to life 
Their slumbering perfume, through this 

silent land 
Of whispering voices and of half-closed 

eyes, 
Where scarce a footstep sounds, nor 

any strain 
Of earthly song, thou cam'st ; and 

suddenly 
The pale cheeks flushed a little, the 

murmured words 
Rose to a faint, thin treble j the throng 

of ghosts 
Pacing along the sunless ways and 

still, 
Felt a new life. Thou camest, dear, 

and straight 
The dull cold river broke in sparkling 

foam, 
The pale and scentless flowers grew 

perfumed ; last 
To the dim chamber, where with the 

sad queen 
I sat in gloom, and silently inwove 
Dead wreaths of amaranths ; thy music 

came 
Laden with life, and I, who seemed to 

know 
Not life's voice only, but my own, 

arose 
Along the hollow pathways following 
The sound which brought back earth 

and life and love. 
And memory and longing. Yet I went 
With half-reluctant footsteps, as of 

one 
Whom passion draws, or some high 

fantasy, 
Despite himself, because some subtle 

spell, 



EURYDICE, 



Part born of dread to cross that sullen 

stream 
And its grim guardians, part of secret 

shame 
Of the young airs and freshness of the 

earth, 
Being that I was, enchained me. 

Then at last, 
From voice and lyre so high a strain 

arose 
As trembled on the utter verge of 

being, 
And thrilling, poured out life. Thus 

nearer drawn 
I walked with thee, enclosed by 

honeyed sound 
And soft environments of harmony, 
Beyond the ghostly gates, beyond the 

dim 
Calm fields, where the beetle hummed 

and the pale owl 
Stole noiseless from the copse, and the 

white blooms 
Stretched thin for lack of sun : so fair 

a light 
Offspring of consonant airs environed 

me. 
Nor looked I backward, as we seemed 

to move 
To some high goal of thought and life 

and love, 
Like twin birds flying fast with equal 

wing 
Out of the night, to meet the coming 

sun 
Above a sea. But on thy dear fair 

eyes. 
The eyes that well I knew on the old 

earth, 
I looked not, for with still averted 

gaze 
Thou leddest, and I followed ; for, 
indeed, 



While that high strain was sounding, 

I was rapt 
In faith and a high courage, driving out 
All doubt and discontent and womanish 

fear, 
Nay, even love itself. But when awhile 
It sank a little, or seemed to sink and 

fall 
To lower levels, seeing that use makes 

blunt 
The too accustomed ear, straightway, 

desire , 
To look once more on thy recovered 

eyes 
Seized me, and oft I called with piteous 

voice, 
Beseeching thee to turn. But thou 

long time 
Wert even as one unmindful, with 

grave sign 
And waving hand, denying. At the 

last. 
When now we neared the stream, on 

whose far shore 
Lay life, great terror took me, and I 

shrieked 
Thy name, as in despair. Then thou, 

as one 
Who knows him set in some great 

jeopardy, 
A swift death fronting him on either 

hand. 
Didst slowly turning gaze ; and lo ! I 

saw 
Thine eyes grown awful, life that 

looked on death. 
Clear purity on black and cankered sin, 
The immortal on corruption, — not the 

eyes 
That erst I knew in life, but dread- 
fuller. 
And stranger. As I looked, I seemed 
to swoon, 



ORPHEUS. 



203 



Some blind force whirled me back, and 


Comes to the low fat fields, and sunny 


when I woke 


vales 


I saw thee vanish in the middle stream, 


Joyous with fruits and flowers, and the 


A speck on the dull waters, taking 


white arms 


with thee 


Of laughing love ; and there awhile he 


My life, and leaving Love with me. 


stays 


But I 


Content, forgetting all the joys he 


Not for myself bewail, but all for thee, 


knew, 


Who, but for me, wert now among the 


When first the morning broke upon 


stars 


the hills. 


With thy great Lord ; I sitting at thy 


And the keen air breathed from the 


feet: 


Eastern gates 


But now the fierce and unrestrained rout 


Like a pure draught of wine ; forget- 


Of passions woman-natured, finding 


ting all 


thee 


The strains which float, as from a 


Scornful of love within thy lonely cell, 


nearer heaven. 


With blind rage falling on thee, tore 


To him who treads at dawn the un- 


thy limbs. 


trodden snows. 


And left them to the Muses' sepulture. 


While all the warm world sleeps ; — 


While thy soul dwells in Hades. But 


forgetting these 


I wail 


And all things that have been. And 


My weakness always, who for Love 


if he gain 


destroyed 


To raise to his own heights the simpler 


The life that was my Love. I prithee, 


souls 


dear, 


That dwell upon the plains, the un- 


Forgive me if thou canst, who hast lost 


tutored thought, 


heaven 


The museless lives, the unawakened 


To save a loving woman." 


brain 


He with voice 


That yet might soar, then is he blest 


Sweeter than any mortal melody, 


indeed. 


And plaintive as the music that is 


But if he fail, then, leaving love 


made 


behind, 


By the yEolian strings, or the sad bird 


The wider love of the race, the closer 


That sings of summer nights : 


love 


*' Eurydice, 


Of some congenial soul, he turns again 


Dear love, be comforted ; not once 


To the old difficult steeps, and there 


alone 


alone 


That which thou mournest is, but day 


Pines, till the widowed passions of his 


by day 


heart 


Some lonely soul, which walks apart 


Tear him and rend his soul, and drive 


' and feeds 


him down 


On high hill pastures, far from herds 


To the low plains he left. And there 


of men, 


he dwells, 



204 



DEIANEIRA. 



Missing the nearer skies, and the white 

peaks, 
And the keen air of old ; but in their 

stead 
Finding the soft sweet sun of the vale, 

the clouds 
Which veil the heavens indeed, but 

give the rains 
That feed the streams of life and make 

earth green. 
And bring at last the harvest. So I 

walk 
In this dim land content with thee, O 

Love, 
Untouched by any yearning of regret 
For those old days ; nor that the lyre 

which made 
Erewhile such potent music now is 

dumb ; 
Nor that the voice that once could 

move the earth 
(Zeus speaking through it), speaks in 

household words 
Of homely love : Love is enough for 

me ' 
With thee, O dearest ; and perchance 

at last, 
Zeus willing, this dumb lyre and 

whispered voice 
Shall wake, by Love inspired, to such 

clear note 
As soars above the stars, and swelling, 

lifts 
Our souls to highest heaven." 

Then he stooped, 
And, folded in one long embrace, they 

went 
And faded. And I cried, *' Oh, strong 

God, Love, 
Mightier than Death and Hell ! " 



And then I chanced 
On a fair woman, whose sad eyes were 

full 
Of a fixed self-reproach, like his who 

knows 
Himself the fountain of his grief, and 

pines 
In self-inflicted sorrow. As I spake 
Enquiring of her grief, she answered 

thus : 

"Stranger, thou seest of all the 

shades below 
The most unhappy. Others sought 

their love 
In death, and found it, dying ; but for 

me 
The death that took me, took from 

me my love. 
And left me comfortless. No load I 

bear 
Like those dark wicked women, who 

have slain 
Their Lords for lust or anger, whom 

the dread 
Propitious Ones within the pit below 
Punish and purge of sin ; only unfaith, 
If haply want of faith be not a crime 
Blacker than murder, when we fail to 

trust 
One worthy of all faith, and folly bring 
No harder recompense than comes of 

scorn 
And loathing of itself. 

Ah, fool, fool, fool, 
Who didst mistrust thy love, who was 

the best. 
And truest, manliest soul with whom 

the gods 
Have ever blest the earth ; so brave, 

so strong, 
Fired with such burning hate of power- 
ful ill. 



DEIANEIRA. 



205 



So loving of the race, so swift to raise 
The strenuous arm and ponderous club, 

and smite 
All monstrous growths with ruin — Zeus 

himself 
Showed scarce more mighty — and yet 

was the while 
A very man, not cast in mould too 

fine 
For human love, but ofttimes snared 

and caught 
By womanish wiles, fast held within 

the net ,, 

His passions wove. Oh, it was joy to 

hear 
How he went forth, the champion of 

his race, 
Conquering in warfare as in love, now 

bent 
To more than human tasks, now lapt 

in ease. 
Now suffering, now enjoying. Strong, 

vast soul, 
Tuned to heroic deeds, and set on high 
Above the range of common petty 

sins — 
Too high to mate with an unequal 

soul, 
Too full of striving for contented days. 

Ah me, how well 1 do recall the 
cause 
Of all our ills ! I was a happy bride 
When that dark Ate which pursues the 

steps 
Of heroes — innocent blood-guiltiness — 
Drove us to exile, and I joyed to be 
His own, and share his pain. To a 

swift stream 
Fleeing we came, where a rough ferry- 
man 
Waited, more brute than man. My 
hero plunged 



In those fierce depths and battled with 

their flow, 
And with great labour gained the 

strand, and bade 
The monster speed me to him. But 

with lust 
And brutal cunning in his eyes, the 

thing 
Seized me and turned to fly with me, 

when swift 
An arrow hissed from the unerring bow, 
Pierced him, and loosed his grasp. Then 

as his eyes 
Grew glazed in death there came in 

them a gleam 
Of what I know was hate, and he said, 

' Take 
This white robe. It is costly. See, 

my blood 
Has stained it but a little. I did wrong : 
I know it, and repent me. If there 

come 
A time when he grows cold — for all the 

race 
Of heroes wander, nor can any love 
Fix theirs for long — take it and wrap 

him in it. 
And he shall love again.' Then, from 

the strange 
Deep look within his eyes I shrank in 

fear. 
And left him half in pity, and I went 
To meet my Lord, who rose from that 

fierce stream 
Fair as a god. 

Ah me, the weary days 
We women live, spending our anxious 

souls, 
Consumed with jealous fancies, hunger- 
ing still 
For the beloved voice and ear and eye. 
And hungering all in vain ! For life is 

more 



2o6 



DEIANEIRA. 



To youthful manhood than to sit at 


When first he loved me, held him in 


home 


the toils 


Before the hearth to watch the children's 


Of scarce dissembled love. Not easily 


•ways, 


Might I believe this evil, but at last 


And lead the life of petty household care 


The oft -repeated malice finding me 


Which doth content us women. Day 


Forlorn, and sitting imp-like at my ear, 


by day 


Possessed me, and the fire of jealous 


I pined in Trachis for my love, while 


love 


he, 


Raged through my veins, not turned as 


Now in some warlike exploit busied, 


yet to hate — 


now 


Too well I loved for that— but l^reeding 


Slaying some monster, now at some 


in me 


fair court, 


Unfaith in him. Love, setting him so 


Resting awhile till some new enterprise 


high 


Called him, returned not. News of 


And self so low, betrayed me, and I 


treacheries 


prayed, 


Avenged, friends succoured, dreadful 


Constrained to hold him false, the 


monsters slain. 


immortal gods 


Came from him : always triumph. 


To make him love again. 


always fame, 


But still he came not. 


And honour, and success, and reverence, 


And still the maddening rumours 


And sometimes, words of love for me 


worked, and still 


who pined 


* Fair, young, and a king's daughter,' 


For more than words, and would have 


the same words 


gone to him 


Smote me and pierced me. Oh, there 


But that the toils of such high errantry 


is no pain 


Asked more than woman's strength. 


In Hades— nay, nor deepest Hell itself. 


So the slow years 


Like that of jealous hearts, the torture- 


Vexed me alone in Trachis, left forlorn 


pain 


In solitude, nor hearing at the gate 


Which racked my life so long. 


The frank and cheering voice, nor on 


Till one fair morn 


the stair • 


There came a joyful message. ' He 


The heavy tread, nor feeling the strong 


has come ! 


arm 


And at the shrine upon the promontory, 


Around me in the darkling night, when 

all 
My being ran slow. Last, subtle 


The fair white shrine upon the purple 

sea. 
He waits to do his solemn sacrifice 


whispers came 


To the immortal gods ; and with him 


Of womanish wiles which kept my Lord 


comes 


from me, 


A young maid beautiful as Dawn.' 


And one who, young and fair, a fresh- 


Then I, 


blown life 


Mingling despair with love, rapt in deep 


And virgin, younger, fairer far than I 


joy 



DEIANEIRA. 



207 



That 



plunged in the 



he was come, 

depths of hell 
That she came too, bethought me of 

the robe 
The Centaur gave me, and the words 

he spake, 
Forgetting the deep hatred in his eyes, 
And all but love, and sent a messenger 
Bidding him wear it for the sacrifice 
To the Immortals, knowing not at all 
Whom Fate decreed the victim. 

Shall my soul 
Forget the agonized message which he 

sent, 
Bidding me come ? For that accursed 

robe, 
Stained with the poisonous accursed 

blood. 
Even in the midmost flush of sacrifice 
Clung to him a devouring fire, and ate 
The piteous flesh from his dear limbs, 

and stung 
His great sof( soul to madness. When 

I came, 
Knowing it was my work, he bent on 

me, 
W^ise as a god through suftering and 

the near 
Inevitable Death, so that no word 
Of mine was needed, such a tender look 
Of mild reproach as smote me. 

* Couldst not thou 
Trust me, who never loved as I love 

thee? 
What need was there of magical arts (o 

draw 
The love that never wavered ? I have 

lived 
As he lives who through perilous paths 

must pass, 
And lifelong trials, striving to keep down 
The brute within him, born of too much 

strength 



And sloth and vacuous days ; by difli- 

cult toils. 
Labours endured, and hard'fought 

fights with ill, 
Now vanquished, now triumphant ; 

and sometimes. 
In intervals of too long labour, finding 
His nature grown too strong for him, 

falls prone 
Awhile a helpless prey, then once again 
Rises and spurns his chains, and fares 

anew 
Along the perilous ways. Deaiest, I 

would 
That thou wert wedded to some knight 

who stayed 
At home within thy gates, and were 

content 
To see thee happy. But for me the 

fierce 
Rude energies of life, the mighty thews, 
The god-sent hate of Wrong, these 

drove me forth 
To quench the thirst of battle. See, 

this maid. 
This is the bride I destined for our son 
Who grows to manhood. Do thou see 

to her 
When I am dead, for soon I know again 
The frenzy comes, and with it ceasing, 

death. 
Go, therefore, ere I harm thee when 

my strength 
Has lost its guidance. Thou wert rich 

in love, 
Be now as rich in faith. Dear, for thy 

wrong 
I do forgive thee.' 

When I saw the glare 
Of madness fire his eyes, and my ears 

heard 
The groans the torture wrung from his 

great soul, 



208 



LAOCOON. 



I fled with broken heart to the white 

shrine, 
And knelt in prayer, but still my sad 

ear took 
The agony of his cries. 

Then I who knew 
There was no hope \n god or man for 

me 
Who had destroyed my Love, and with 

him slain 
The champion of the suffering race of 

men, 
And that my jealous soul, though 

innocent 
Of blood, was guilty of unfaith and vile 
Mistrust, and wrapt in weakness like a 

cloak, 
And made the innocent tool of hate 

and wrong, 
Against all love and good ; grown sick 

and filled 
With hatred of myself, rose from my 

knees, 
And went a little space apart, and found 
A gnarled tree on the cliff, and with 

my scarf 
Strangling myself, swung lifeless. 

But in death 
I found him not. For, building a vast 

pile 
Of scented woods on Oeta, as they tell, 
My hero with his own hand lighted it, 
And when the mighty pyre flamed far 

and wide 
Over all lands and seas, he climbed 

on it 
And laid him down to die ; but pitying 

Zeus, 
Before the swift flames reached him, in 

a cloud 
Descending, snatched the strong brave 

soul to heaven, 
And set him mid the stars. 



Therefore am I 
Of all the blameless shades within this 

place 
The most unhappy, if of blame, indeed, 
I bear no load. For what is Sin itself, 
But Error when we miss the road which 

leads 
Up to the gate of heaven ? Ignorance ! 
What if we be the cause of ignorance ? 
Being blind who might have seen ! Yet 

do I know 
But self-inflicted pain, nor stain there is 
Upon my soul such as they bear who 

know 
The dreadful scourge with which the 

stern judge still 
Lashes their sins. I am forgiven, I 

know. 
Who loved so much, and one day, if 

Zeus will, 
I shall go free from hence, and join my 

Lord, 
And be with him again. " 

And straight I seemed. 
Passing, to look on some tormented life. 
Which knows to-day the irony of Fate 
In self-inflicted pain. 



Together clung 
The ghosts whom next I saw, bound 

three in one 
By some invisible bond. A sire, of port 
God-like as Zeus, to whom on either 

hand 
A tender stripling clung. I knew them 

well. 
As all men know them. One fair youth 

spake low : 
"Father, it does not pain me now, to 

be 



LAOCOON. 



209 



Drawn close to thee, and by a double 

bond, 
With this my brother." And the 

other : *' Nay, 
Nor nie, O father ; but I bless the chain 
Which binds our souls in union. If 

some trace 
Of pain still linger, heed it not — 'tis 

past : 
Still let us cHng to thee." 

He with grave eyes 
Full of great tenderness, upon his sons 
Looked with the father's gaze, that is 

so far 
]More sweet, and sad, and tender, than 

the gaze 
Of mothers, — now on this one, now on 

that. 
Regarding them. '■'■ Dear sons, whom 

on the earth 
I loved and cherished, it was hard to 

watch 
Your pain ; but now 'tis finished, and 

we stand 
For ever, through all future days of time, 
Symbols of patient suffering undeserved. 
Endured and vanquished. Yet sad 

memory still 
Brings back our time of trial. 

The young day 
Broke fair when I, the dread Poseidon's 

priest, 
Joyous because the unholy strife was 

done. 
And seeing the blue waters now left free 
Of hostile keels — save where upon the 

verge 
Far off the white sails faded — rose at 

dawn. 
And whiterobed,andin garb of sacrifice, 
And with the sacred fillet round my 

brows, 
Stood at the altar ; and behind, ye twain, 



Decked by your mother's hand with 

new-cleansed robes, 
And with fresh flower-wreathed chaplets 

on your curls. 
Attended, and your clear young voices 

made 
Music that touched your father's eyes 

with tears, 
If not the careless gods. I seem to hear 
Those high sweet accents mounting in 

the hymn 
Which rose to all the blessed gods who 

dwelt 
Upon the far Olympus— Zeus, the Lord, 
And Sovereign Here, and the immortal 

choir 
Of Deities, but chiefly to the dread 
Poseidon, him who sways the purple 

sea 
As with a sceptre, shaking the fixed 

earth 
With stress of thundering surges. By 

the shrine 
The meek-eyed victim, for the sacrifice, 
Stood with his gilded horns. The 

hymns were done, 
And I in act to strike, when all the 

crowd 
Who knelt behind us, with a common 

fear 
Cried, with a cry that well might freeze 

the blood, 
And then, with fearful glances towards 

the sea, 
Fled, leaving us alone — me, the high 

priest, 
And ye, the acolytes ; forlorn of men. 
Alone, but with our god. 

But we stirred not 
We dared not fly, who in the solemn 

act 
Of worship, and the ecstasy which 

comes 

P 



2IO 



LAOCOON. 



To the believer's soul, saw heaven 


Ourselves the victims? They were 


revealed, 


wrong who taught 


The mysteries unveiled, the inner sky 


That 'twas some jealous goddess thus 


Which meets the enraptured gaze. 


assailed 


How should we fear 


Our lives, revengeful for discovered 


Who thus were god-encircled ! So we 


wiles. 


stood 


Or hateful of our Troy. Not readily 


While the long ritual spent itself, nor 


Should such base passions sway the 


cast 


immortal gods ; 


An eye upon the sea. Till as I came 


But rather do I hold it sooth indeed 


To that great act which offers up a 


That Zeus himself it was, who pitying 


life 


The ruin he foreknew, yet might not 


Before life's Lord, and the full mystery 


stay. 


Was trembling to completion, quick I 


Since mightier Fate decreed it, sent in 


heard 


haste 


A stifled cry of agony, and knew 


Those dreadful messengers, and bade 


My children's voices. And the father's 


them take 


heart. 


The pious lives he loved, before the 


Which is far more than rile or service 


din 


done 


Of midnight slaughter woke, and the 


By man for god, seeing that it is divine 


fair town 


And comes from God to men— this 


Flamed pitifully to the skies, and all 


rising in me, 


W^as blood and ruin. Surely it was 


Constrained me, and I ceased my prayer. 


best 


and turned 


To die as we did, and in death to live, 


To succour you, and lo ! the awful 


A vision for all ages of high pain 


coils 


Which passes into beauty, and is 


Which crushed your lives already. 


merged 


bound me round 


In one accordant whole, as discords 


And crushed me also, as you clung to 


merge 


me, 


In that great Harmony which ceaseless 


In common death. Some god had 


rings 


heard the prayer. 


From the tense chords of life, than to 


And lo ! we were ourselves the sacri- 


have lived 


fice— 


Our separate lives, and died our separate 


The priest, the victim, the accepted 


deaths. 


life. 


And left no greater mark than drops 


The blood, the pain, the salutary loss. 


which rain 




Upon the unwrinkled sea. Those hosls 


Was it not better thus to cease and die 


which fell 


Together in one blest moment, mid the 


Before the Scsean gate upon the sand, 


flush 


Nor found a bard to sing their fate, but 


And ecstasy of worship, and to know 


left 



NARCISSUS. 



211 



Their bones to dogs and kites — were 

they more blest 
Than we who, in the people's sight 

before 
Ilium's imshattered towers, lay down 

to die 
Our swift miraculous death? Dear 

sons, and good, 
Dear children of my love, now doubly 

dear 
For this our common sorrow ; suffer- 
ing binds 
Not gyves of pain alone, but fashions 

for us 
A chain of purest gold, which though 

withdrawn 
Or felt no longer, knits 'tween soul and 

soul, 
Indissoluble bonds, and draws our 

lives 
So close, that though the individual life 
Be merged, there springs a common 

life which grows 
To such dread beauty, as has power to 

take 
The sting from sorrow, and transform 

the pain 
Into transcendent joy : as from the 

storm 
The unearthly rainbow draws its 

myriad hues 
And steeps the world in fairness. All 

our lives 
Are notes that fade and sink, and so 

are merged 
In the full harmony of Being. Dear 

sons, 
Cling closer to me. Life nor Death 

has torn 
Our lives asunder, as for some, but 

drawn 
Their separate strands together in a 

knot 



Closer than Life itself, stronger than 

Death, 
Insoluble as Fate." 

Then they three clung 
Together — the strong father and young 

sons, 
And in their loving eyes I saw the 

Pain 
Fade into Joy, Suffering in Beauty lost, 
And Death in Love ! 



By a still sullen pool, 
Into its dark depths gazing, lay the 

ghost 
Whom next I passed. In form, a 

comely youth, 
Scarce passed from boyhood. Golden 

curls were his, 
And wide blue eyes. The semblance 

of a smile 
Came on his lip — a girl's but for the 

down 
Which hardly shaded it ; but the pale 

cheek 
Was soft as any maiden's, and his robe 
Was virginal, and at his breast he bore 
The perfumed amber cup which, when 

March comes, 
Gems the dry woods and windy wolds, 

and speaks 
The resurrection. 

Looking up, he said : 
" Methought I saw her then, my love, 

my fair, 
My beauty, my ideal ; the dim clouds 
Lifted, methought, a little — or was it 
Fond Fancy only ? For I know that 

here 
No sunbeam cleaves the twilight, but 

a mist 



212 



NARCISSUS. 



Creeps over all the sky and fields and 

pools, 
And blots them ; and I know I seek in 

vain 
My earth-sought beauty, nor can Fancy 

bring 
An answer to my thought from these 

blind depths 
And unawakened skies. Yet has use 

made 
The quest so precious, that I keep it 

here, 
Well knowing it is vain. 

On the old earth 
'Twas otherwise, when in fair Thes- 

saly 
I walked regardless of all nymphs who 

sought 
My love, but sought in vain, whether 

it were 
Dryad or Naiad from the woods or 

streams, 
Or white-robed Oread fleeting on the 

side 
Of fair Olympus^ echoing back my 

sighS; 
In vain, for through the mountains day 

by day 
I wandered, and along the foaming 

brooks. 
And by the pine-woods dry, and never 

took 
A thought for love, nor ever 'mid the 

throng 
Of loving nymphs who knew me beau- 
tiful 
I dallied, unregarding ; till they said 
Some died for love of me, who loved 

not one. 
And yet I cared not, wandering still 

alone 
Amid the mountains by the scented 

pines. 



Till one fair day, when all the hills 

were still, 
Nor any breeze made murmur through 

the boughs, 
Nor cloud was on the heavens, I 

wandered slow, 
Leaving the nymphs who fain with 

dance and song 
Had kept me 'midst the glades, and 

strayed away 
Among the pines, enwrapt in fantasy. 
And by the beechen dells which clothe 

the feet 
Of fair Olympus, wrapt in fantasy. 
Weaving the thin and unembodied 

shapes 
Which Fancy loves to body forth, and 

leave 
In marble or in song ; and so strayed 

down 
To a low sheltered vale above the 

plains. 
Where the lush grass grew thick, and 

the stream stayed 
Its garrulous tongue ; and last upon 

the bank 
Of a still pool I came, where was no 

flow 
Of water, but the depths were clear as 

air, 
And nothing but the silvery gleaming 

side 
Of tiny fishes stirred. There lay I 

down 
Upon the flowery bank, and scanned 

the deep, 
Half in a waking dream. 

Then swift there rose, 
From those enchanted depths, a face 

more fair 
Than ever I had dreamt of, and I knew 
My sweet long-sought ideal : the thick 

curlsj 



NARCJSSUS. 



213 



Like these, were golden, and the white 


Rose, a blue vault above us, and no 


robe showed 


shade 


Like this ; but for the wondrous eyes 


Of earthly thing obscured us, as we 


and lips, 


lay 


The tender loving glance, the sunny 


Two reflex souls, one and yet different, 


smile 


Two sundered souls longing to be 


Upon the rosy mouth, these knew I 

not, 
Not even in dreams ; and yet I seemed 


at one. 


There, all day long, until the light was 


to trace 


gone 


Myself within them too, as who should 


And took my love away, I lay and 


find 


loved 


His former self expunged, and him 


The image, and when night was come, 


transformed 


'Farewell,' 


To some high thin ideal, separate 


I whispered, and she whispered back, 


From what he was, by some invisible 


•Farewell,' 


bar, 


With oh, such yearning ! Many a day 


And yet the same in difference. As I 


we spent 


moved 


By that clear pool together all day long. 


My arms to clasp her to me, lo ! she 


And many a clouded hour on the wet 


moved 


grass 


Her eager arms to mine, smiled to my 


I lay beneath the rain, and saw her not, 


smile. 


And sickened for her ; and sometimes 


Looked love to love, and answered 


the pool 


longing eyes 


Was thick with flood, and hid her ; and 


With longing. When my full heart 


sometimes 


burst in words. 


Some cold wind ruffled those clear 


'Dearest, I love thee,' lo ! the lovely 


wells, and left 


lips, 


But glimpses of her, and I rose at eve 


•Dearest, I love thee,' sighed, and 


Unsatisfied, a cold chill in my limbs 


through the air 


And fever at my heart : until, too soon ! 


The love-lorn echo rang. But when I 


The summer faded, and the skies were 


longed 


hid, 


To answer kiss with kiss, and stooped 


And my love came not, but a quench- 


my lips 


less thirst 


To her sweet lips in that long thrill 


Wasted my life. And all the winter 


which strains 


long 


Soul unto soul, the cold lymph came 


The bright sun shone not, or the thick 


between 


ribbed ice 


And chilled our love, and kept us 


Obscured her, and I pined for her, and 


separate souls 


knew 


Which fain would mingle, and the self- 


My life ebb from me, till I grew too 


same heaven 


weak 



214 



NARCISSUS. 



To seek her, fearing I should see no 

more 
My dear. And so the long dead winter 

waned 
And the slow spring came back. 

And one blithe day, 
When life was in the woods, and the 

birds sang, 
And soft airs fanned the hills, I knew 

again 
Some gleam of hope within me, and 

again 
"With feeble limbs crawled forth, and 

felt the spring 
Blossom within me ; and the flower- 
starred glades. 
The bursting trees, the building nests, 

the songs, 
The hurry of life revived me ; and I 

crept, 
Ghost like, amid the joy, until I flung 
My panting frame, and weary nerveless 

limbs, 
Down by the cold still pool. 

And lo ! I saw 
My love once more, not beauteous as 

of old, 
But oh, how changed ! the fair young 

cheek grown pale, 
The great eyes, larger than of yore, 

gaze forth 
With a sad yearning look ; and a great 

pain 
And pity took me which were more 

than love, 
And with a loud and wailing voice I 

cried, 
* Dearest, I come again. I pine for 

thee,' 
And swift she answered back, ' I pine 

for thee ; ' 
'Come to me, oh, my own,' I cried, 

and she — 



Come to me, oh, my own. Then 

with a cry 
Of love I joined myself to her, and 

plunged 
Beneath the icy surface with a kiss, 
And fainted, and am here. 

And now, indeed, 
I know not if it was myself I sought, 
As some tell, or another. For I hold 
That what we seek is but our other 

self, 
Other and higher, neither wholly like 
Nor wholly different, the half-life the 

gods 
Retained when half was given — one 

the man 
And one the woman ; and I longed to 

round 
The imperfect essence by its comple- 
ment. 
For only thus the perfect life stands forth 
Whole, self-sufficing. Worse it is to 

live 
111 -mated than imperfect, and to move 
From a false centre, not a perfect 

sphere. 
But with a crooked bias sent oblique 
Athwart life's furrows. 'Twas myself, 

indeed. 
Thus only that I sought, that lovers use 
To see in that they love, not that 

which is. 
But that their fancy feigns, and view 

themselves 
Reflected in their love, yet glorified. 
And finer and more pure. 

Wherefore it is : 
All love which finds its own ideal mate 
Is happy — happy that which gives itself 
Unto itself, and keeps, through long 

calm years, 
The tranquil image in its eyes, and 

knows 



MEDUSA. 



215 



Fulfilment and is blest, and day by 


For in those tender flo\\ ers is hid the 


day 


life 


Wears love like a white flower, nor 


That once was mine. All things are 


holds it less 


bound in one 


Though sharp winds bite, or hot suns 


In earth and heaven, nor is there any 


fade, or age 


gulf 


Sully its perfect whiteness, but inhales 


'Twixt things that live,— the flower that 


Its fragrance, and is glad. But happier 


was a life. 


still 


The life that is a flower, — but one sure 


He who long seeks a high goal un- 


chain 


attained. 


Binds all, as now I know. 


And wearies for it all his days, nor 


If there are stiU 


knows 


Fair Oreads on the hills, say to them. 


Possession sate his thirst, but slill 


sir, 


pursues 


They must no longer pine for me, but 


The fleelii-j, .^veliness— now seen, now 


find 


lost, 


Some worthier lover,' who can love 


But evermore grown fairer, till at last 


again ; 


He stretches forth his arms and takes 


For I have found my love." 


the fair 


And to the pool 


In one long rapture, and its name is 


He turned, and gazed with dreaming 


Death." 


eyes, and showed 




Fair as an angel. 


Thus he ; and seeing me stand grave : 




*' Farewell. 




If ever thou shouldst happen on a wood 




In Thessaly, upon the plain-ward spuis 




Of fair Olympus, take the path which 


Leaving him enwrapt 


winds 


In musings, to a gloomy pass I came 


Through the close vale, and thou shalt 


Between dark rocks, where scarce a 


see the pool 


gleam of light, 


Where once I found my life. And if 


Not even the niggard light of that dim 


in Spring 


land. 


Thou go there, round the margin thou 


Might enter ; and the soil was black 


shalt know 


and bare. 


These amber blooms bend meekly, 


Nor even the thin growths which 


smiling down 


scarcely clothed 


Upon the crystal surface. Pluck them 


The higher fields might live. Hard by 


not. 


a cave 


But kneel a little while, and breathe a 


Which sloped down steeply to the lowest 


prayer 


depths, 


To the fair god of Love, and let them 


Whence dreadful sounds ascended. 


be. 


seated stilL 



2l6 



MEDUSA. 



Her head upon her hands, I saw a 

maid 
With eyes fixed on the ground — not 

Tartarus 
It was, but Hades ; and she knew no 

pain, 
Except her painful thought. Yet there 

it seemed, 
As here, the unequal measure which 

awaits 
The adjustment, and meanwhile, in- 
spires the strife 
Which rears life's palace walls ; and 

fills the sail 
W^hich bears our bark across unfathomed 

seas. 
To its last harbour ; this prevailed 

there too, 
And 'twas a luckless shade wliich sat 

and wept 
Amid the gloom, though blameless. 

Suddenly, 
She raised her head, and lo ! the long 

curls, writhed. 
Tangled, and snake-like — as the drip- 
ping hair 
Of a dead girl who freed from life and 

shame, 
From out the cruel wintry flow, is 

laid 
Stark on the snow with dreadful staring 

eyes 
Like hers. For when she raised her 

eyes to mine, 
They chilled my blood, so great a woe 

they bore ; 
And as she gazed, wide-eyed, I knew 

my pulse 
Beat slow, and my limbs stiffen. Then 

they wore. 
At length, a softer look, and life revived 
Within my breast as thus she softly 

spoke : 



*' Nay, friend, I would not harm 

thee. I have known 
Great sorrow, and sometimes it racks 

me still. 
And turns me into stone, and makes 

my eyes 
As dreadful as of yore ; and yet it 

comes 
But seldom, as thou sawest, now, for 

Time 
And Death have healing hands. Only 

I love 
To sit within the darkness here, nor 

face 
The throng of happier ghosts ; if any 

ghost 
Of happiness come here. For on the 

earth 
They wronged me bitterly, and turned 

to stone 
My heart, till scarce I knew if e'er I was 
The happy girl of yore. 

That youth who dreams 
Up yonder by the margin of the lake. 
Knew but a cold ideal love, but me 
Love in unearthly guise, but bodily 

form. 
Seized and betrayed. 

I was a priestess once, 
Of stern Athene, doing day by day 
Due worship ; raising, every dawn that 

came. 
My cold pure hymns to take her virgin 

ear ; 
Nor sporting with the joyous company 
Of youths and maids, who at the neigh- 
bouring shrine 
Of Aphrodite served. Nor dance nor 

song 
Allured me, nor the pleasant days of 

youth 
And twilights 'mid the vines. They 

held me cold 



MEDUSA. 



217 



Who were my friends in childhood. 


To wreak such vengeance on me ? I 


For my soul 


had erred, 


Was virginal, and at the virgin shrine 


It may be ; but on him, whose was the 


I knelt, athirst for knowledge. Day by 


guilt. 


day 


No heaven-sent vengeance lighted, but 


The long cold ritual sped, the liturgies 


he sped 


Were done, the barren hymns of praise 


Away to other hearts across the deep. 


went up 


Careless and free ; but me, the cold 


Before the goddess, and the ecstasy 


stern eyes 


Of faith possessed me wholly, till almost 


Of the pure goddess withered ; and the 


I knew not I was woman. Yet I knew 


scorn 


That I was fair to see, and fit to share 


Of maids, despised before, and the 


wSome natural honest love, and bear the 


great blank 


load 


Of love, this wrung my heart, whose 


Of children like the rest ; only my soul 


love was gone, 


Was lost in higher yearnings. 


And froze my blood ; set on my brow 


Like a god, 


despair. 


He burst upon those pallid lifeless days. 


And turned my gaze to stone, and filled 


Bringing fresh airs and salt, as from 


my eyes 


the sea. 


With horror, and stiffened the soft 


And wrecked my life. How should a 


curls which once 


virgin know 


Lay smooth and fair into such snake- 


Deceit, who never at the joyous shrine 


like rings 


Of Cypris knelt, but ever lived apart. 


As made my aspect fearful. All who 


And so grew guilty? For if I had 


saw. 


spent 


Shrank from me and grew cold, and 


My days among the throng, either my 


felt the warm, 


fault 


Full tide of life freeze in them, seeing 


Were blameless, or undone. For 


in me 


innocence 


Love's work, who sat wrapt up and 


The tempter spreads his net. For 


lost in shame, 


innocence 


As in a cloak, consuming my own heart. 


The gods keep all their terrors. Inno- 


And was in hell already. As they gazed 


cence 


Upon me, my despair looked forth so 


It is that bears the burden, which for 


cold 


guilt 


From out my eyes, that if some spoiler 


Is lightened, and the spoiler goes his 


came 


way, 


Fresh from his wickedness, and looked 


Uncaring, joyous, leaving her alone. 


on them. 


The victim and unfriended. 


Their glare would strike him dead ; and 


Was it just 


those fair curls 


In her, my mistress, who had had my 


Which once the accursed toyed with, 


youth. 


grew to be 



2I8 



MEDUSA. 



The poisonous things thou seest ; and 


Which too great sorrow left me j at one 


sOj with hate 


stroke 


Of man's injustice and the gods', who 


Clean from the trunk, and then o'er 


knew 


land and sea, 


Me blameless, and yet punished me ; 


Invisible, sped with winged heels, to 


and .sick 


wheie. 


Of life and love, and loathing earth 


Upon a sea worn cape, a fair young 


and sky. 


maid, 


And feeding on my sorrow, Hate at last 


More blameless even than I was, 


Left me a Fury. 


chained and bound. 


Ah, the load of life 


Waited a monster from the deep and 


Which lives for hatred ! We are made 


stood 


to love — 


In innocent nakedness. Then, as he 


We women, and the injury which turns 


rose. 


The honey of our lives to gall, trans- 


Loathsome, from out the depths, a 


forms 


monstrous growth. 


The angel to the fiend. For it is 


A creature wholly serpent, partly man, 


sweet 


The wrongs that I had known, stronger 


To know the dreadful sense of strength, 


than death. 


and smite 


Rose up with such black hate in me 


And leave the tyrant dead with a 


again, 


glance ; ay ! sweet, 


And wreathed such hissing poison 


In that fierce lust of power, to slay the 


through my hair. 


life 


And shot such deadly glance^ from my 


Which harmed not, when the sup- 


eyes, 


pliants' cry ascends 


That nought that saw might live. And 


To ears which hate has deafened. So 


the vile worm 


I lived 


W^as slain, and she delivered. Then I 


Long time in misery ; to my sleepless 


dreamt 


eyes 


My mistress, whom I thought so stern 


No healing slumbers coming ; but at 


to me, 


length. 


Athene, set those dreadful staring eyes. 


Zeus and the goddess pitying, I knew 


And that despairing visage, on her shield 


Soft rest once more veiling my dreadful 


Of chastity, and bears it evermore 


gaze 


To fright the waverer from the wrong 


In peaceful slumbers. Then a blessed 


he would. 


dream 


And strike the unrepenting spoiler, 


I dreamt. For, lo ! a god-like knight 


dead." 


in mail 




Of gold, who sheared with his keen 


Then for a little paused she, while I 


flashing blade ; 


saw 


With scarce a pang of pain, the visage 


Again her eyes grow dreadful, till 


cold 


once more, 



ADONIS. 



219 



And with a softer glance : 

" From that blest dream 
I woke not on the earth, but only here. 
And now my pain is lightened since I 

know 
My dream, which was a dream within 

the dream 
Which is our life, fulfilled. And I have 

saved 
Another through my suffering, and 

through her 
A people. Oh, strange chain of sacri- 
fice, 
That binds an innocent life, and from 

its blood 
And sorrow works out joy ! Oh, 

mystery 
Of pain and evil ! wrong grown salu- 
tary, 
And mighty to redeem ! If thou 

shouldst see 
A woman on the earth, who pays to- 
day 
Like penalty of sin, and the new gods 
(For after Saturn, Zeus ruled ; after 

him 
It may be there are others) love to take 
The tender heart of girlhood, and to 

immure 
"Within a cold and cloistered cell the 

life 
Which nature meant to bless, and if 

Love come 
Hold her accursed ; or to some poor 

maid. 
Forlorn and trusting, still the tempter 

conies 
And works his wrong, and leaves her 

in despair 
And shame and all abhorrence, while 

he goes 
His way unpunished, — if thou know 

her eyes 



Freeze thee like mine — oh ! bid her 

lose her pain 
In succouring others — say to her that 

Time 
And Death have healing hands, and 

here there comes 
To the forgiven transgressor only pain 
Enough to chasten joy ! " 

And a soft tear 
Trembled within her eyes, and her 

sweet gaze 
Was as the Magdalen's, the horror 

gone 
And a great radiance come. 



Then as I passed 
To upper air, I saw two figures rise 
Together, one a woman with a grave 
Fair face not all unhappy, and the 

robes 
And presence of a queen ; and with 

her walked 
The fairest youth that ever maiden's 

dream 
Conceived. And as they came, the 

throng of ghosts, 
For these who were not wholly ghosts, 

arose. 
And did them homage. Not the bond 

of love 
Bound them, but such calm kinship as 

is bred 
Of long and difficult pilgrimages borne 
Through common perils by two souls 

which share 
A common weary exile. Nor as ghosts 
These showed, but rather like two lives 

which hung 
Suspended in a trance. A halo of 

life 



ADONIS. 



Played round them, and they brought 

a sweet brisk air 
Tasting of earth and heaven, like 

sojourners 
Who stayed but for awhile, and knew 

a swift 
Release await them. First the youth 

it was 
Who spake thus as they passed : 

" Dread Queen, once more 
I feel life stir within me, and my blood 
Run faster, while a new strange cycle 

turns 
And grows completed. Soon on the 

dear earth. 
Under the lively light of fuller day, 
I shall revive me of my wound ; and 

thou, 
Passing with me yon cold and lifeless 

stream. 
And the grim monster who will fawn 

on thee, 
Shalt issue in royal pomp, and wreathed 

with flowers, 
Upon the cheerful earth, leaving behind 
A deeper winter for the ghosts who 

dwell 
Within these sunless haunts ; and I 

shall lie 
Once more within loved arms, and thou 

shalt see 
Thy early home, and kiss thy mother's 

cheek. 
And be a girl again. But not for long ; 
For ere the bounteous Autumn spreads 

her hues 
Of gold and purple, a cold voice will 

call 
And bring us to these wintry lands once 

more. 
As erst so often. Blest are we, indeed, 
Above the rest, and yet I would I knew 
The careless joys of old. 



For in hot youth. 
Oh, it was sweet to greet the balmy 

night 
That was love's nurse, and feel the 

weary eyes 
Closed by soft kisses, — sweet at early 

dawn 
To wake refreshed and, scarce from 

loving arms 
'Scaping, to ride afield, with winding 

horn, 
By dewy heath and brake, and taste 

the fair 
Young breath of early morning ; and 

'twas sweet 
To chase the bounding quarry all day 

long 
With my good hounds and trusty steed, 

and gay 
Young comrades of my youth, and with 

the eve 
To turn home laden with the spoil, and 

take 
The banquet which awaited, and sweet 

wine 
Poured out, and kisses pressed on 

loving lips ; 
Circled by snowy arms. Oh, it was 

sweet 
To be alive and young ! 

For sure it is 
The gods gave not quick pulses and 

hot blood 
And strength and beauty for no end, 

but would 
That we should use them wisely ; and 

the fair, 
Sweet mistress of my service was, 

indeed. 
Worthy of all observance. Oh, her 

eyes 
When I lay bleeding ! All day long 
we rode, 



PERSEPHONE. 



I and my youthful peers, with horse 


Being a goddess and in heaven, but 


and hound, 


smooths 


And knew the joy of swift pursuit and 


My path to the old earth, where still I 


toil 


know 


And peril. At the last, a fierce boar 


Once more the dear lost days, and once 


turned 


again 


At bay, and with his gleaming tusks 


Blossom on that soft breast, and am 


o'erthrew 


again 


My steed, and as I fell upon the 


A youth, and rapt in love ; and yet 


flowers, 


not all 


Pierced me as with a sword. Then, 


As careless as of yore ; but seem to 


as I lay. 


know 


I knew the strange slow chill which, 


The early spring of passion, tamed by 


stealing, tells 


time 


The young that it is death. Yet knew 


And suffering, to a calmer, fuller flow, 


I not 


Less fitful, but more strong." 


Or pain or fear, only great pity, indeed. 


Then ftie sad Queen : 


That she should lose her love, who was 


" Fair youth, thy lot I know, for I am 


so fond 


old 


And gracious. But when, lifting my 


As the old earth and yet as young 


dim gaze, 


as is 


I saw her bend o'er me, — the lovely 


The budding spring, and I was here a 


eyes 


Queen, 


Suffused with tears, and her sweet 


When Love was not or Time, and to 


smile replaced 


my arms 


By sweeter sorrow, — for a while I 


Thou camest as a little child, to dwell 


stayed 


Within the halls of Death, for without 


Life's ebbing tide, and raised my cold, 


Death 


M'hite lips, 


There were nor Birth nor Love, nor 


With a faint smile, to hers. Then, 


Avould Life yearn 


with a kiss — 


To lose itself within another life. 


One long last kiss, we mingled, and I 


And dying, to be born. I, too, have 


knew 


died 


No more. 


For love in part, and live again through 


But even in death, so strong is Love, 


love ; 


I could not wholly die ; and year by 


For in the far-off years, when Time 


year, 


was young. 


When the flowered Spring returns, and 


And Love unborn on earth, and Zeus 


the earth lives, 


in heaven 


Love opens these dread gates, and calls 


Ruled, a young sovereign ; I, a maiden. 


me forth 


dwelt 


Across the gulf. Not here, indeed, she 


With loved Demeter on the sunny 


comes, 


plains 



222 



PERSEPHONE. 



Of our own Sicily. There, day by day, 


Hiding my life in his, nor when I wept. 


I sported with my playmate goddesses, 


My flowers all withered, and my blood 


In virgin freedom. Budding age made 


ran slow 


gay 


Within a wintry land. Some voice 


Our lightsome feet, and on the flowery 


there was 


slopes 


Which said, 'Fear not. Thou shalt 


We wandered daily, gathering flowers 


return and see 


to weave 


Thy mother again, only a little while 


In careless garlands for our locks, and 


Fate wills that thou shouldst tarry, and 


passed 


become 


The days in innocent gladness. Thought 


Queen of another world. Thou seest 


of Love 


that all 


There came not to us, for as yet the 


Thy flowers are faded. They shall live 


earth 


again 


Was virginal, nor yet had Eros come 


On earth, as thou shalt, as thou livest 


With his delicious pain. 


now 


And one fair morn — 


The Life of Death— for what is Death 


Not all the ages blot it — on the side 


but Life 


Of ^tna we were straying. There was 


Suspended as in sleep ? The primal 


then 


rule 


Summer nor winter, springtide nor the 


Where life was constant, and the sun 


time 


o'erhead. 


Of harvest, but the soft unfailing sun 


Blazed forth unchanging, changes and 


Shone always, and the sowing time was 


is hidden 


one 


Awhile. This region which thou seest, 


With reaping ; fruit and flower together 


where all 


glowed 


The trees are lifeless, and the flowers 


Upon the trees ; and blade and ripened 


are dead, 


ear 


Is but the self-same earth on which 


Together clothed the plains. There, 


erewhile 


as I strayed, 


Thou sportedst fancy free.' 


Sudden a black cloud down the rugged 


So, without fear 


side 


I wandered on this bare land, seeing far 


Of ^tna, mixed with fire and dreadful 


Upon the sky the peaks of my own hills 


sound 


And crests of my own woods. Till, 


Of thunder, rolled around me, and I 


when I grew 


heard 


Hungered, ere yet another form I saw ; 


The maids who were my fellows turn 


Along the silent alleys journeying. 


and flee 


And leafless groves ; a fair and mystic 


With shrieks and cries for me. 


tree 


But I, I knew 


Rose like a heart in shape, and 'mid its 


No terror while the god o'ershadowed 


leaves 


me. 


One golden mystic fruit with a fair seed 



PERSEPHONE. 



223 



Hid in it. This, with childish hand, I 

took 
And ate, and straight I knew the tree 

was Life, 
And the fruit Death, and the hid seed 

was Love. 

Ah, sweet strange fruit ! the which 

if any taste 
They may no longer keep their lives of 

old 
Or their own selves unchanged, but 

some weird change 
And subtle alchemy comes which can 

transmute 
The blood, and mould the spirits of 

gods and men 
In some new magical form. Not as 

before, 
Our life comes to us, though the passion 

cools, 
Nviy, never as before. INIy mother 

came 
Too late to seek mc. She had power 

to raise 
A life from out Death's grasp, but from 

the arms 
Of Love she might not take me, nor 

undo 
Love's past for all her strength. She 

came and sought 
With fires her daughter over land and 

sea, 
Beyond the paths of all the setting stars, 
In vain, and over all the earth in vain, 
Seeking whom love disguised. Then 

on all lands 
She cast the spell of barrenness : the 

wheat 
Was blighted in the ear, the purple 

grapes 
Blushed no more on the vines, and all 

the gods 



Were sorrowful, seeing the load of ill 
My rape had laid on men. Last, Zeus 

himself, 
Pitying the evil that was done, sent forth 
His messenger beyond the western lim 
To fetch me back to earth. 

But not the same 
He found me who had eaten of Love's 

seed, 
But changed into another ; nor could 

his power 
Prevail to keep me wholly on the earth, 
Or make me maid again. The wintry 

life 
Is homelier often than the summer blaze 
Of happiness unclouded; so, when 

Spring 
Comes on the world, I, coming, cross 

with thee, 
Year after year, the cruel icy stream ; 
And leave this anxious sceptre and the 

shades 
Of those in hell, or those for whom, 

though blest, 
No Spring comes, till the last great 

Spring which brings 
New heavens and new earth ; and lay 

my head 
Upon my mother's bosom, and giow 

young, 
And am a girl again. 

A soft air breathes 
Across the stream and fills these barren 

fields 
With the sweet odours of the earth. I 

know 
Again the perfume of the violets 
Which bloom on Etna's side. Soon 

we shall pass 
Together to our home, while round our 

feet 
The crocus flames like gold, the wind- 
flowers white 



224 



ENDYMION. 



Wave their soft petals on the hreeze, 

and all 
The choir of flowers lift up their silent 

song 
To the unclouded heavens. Thou, fair 

boy, 
Shalt lie within thy love's white arms 

again, 
And I within my mother's. Sweet is Love 
In ceasing and renewal ; nay, in these 
It lives and has its being. Thou couldst 

not keep 
Thy youth as now, if always on the 

breast 
Of love too late a lingerer thou hadst 

known 
Possession sate thee. Nor might I have 

kept 
My mother's heart, if I had lived to ripe 
And wither on the stalk. Time calls 

and Change 
Commands both men and gods, and 

speeds us on 
We know not whither ; but the old 

earth smiles 
Spring after Spring, and the seed bursts 

again 
Out of its prison mould, and the dead 

lives 
Renew themselves, and rise aloft and 

soar 
And are transformed, clothing them- 
selves with change 
Till the last change be done." 

As thus she spake, 
I saw a gleam of light flash from the eyes 
Of all the listening shades, and a great 

Thrill through the realms of Death. 



And then again 
A youthful shade I saw, a comely boy. 
With lip and cheek just touched with 

manly down. 
And strong limbs wearing Spring ; in 

mien and garb 
A youthful chieftain, with a perfect face 
Of fresh young beauty, clustered curls 

divine. 
And chiselled features like a sculptured 

god. 
But warm and breathing life ; only the 

eyes, 
The fair large eyes, were full of dream- 
ing thought. 
And seemed to gaze beyond the world 

of sight, 
On a hid world of beauty. Him I 

stayed. 
Accosting with soft words of courtesy ; 
And, on a bank of scentless flowers 

reclined, 
He answered thus : 

*' Not for the garish sun 
I long, nor for the splendours of high 

noon 
In this dim land I languish ; for of 

yore 
Full often, when the swift chase swept 

along 
Through the brisk morn, or when my 

comrades called 
To wrestling, or the foot-race, or to 

cleave 
The sunny stream, I lovedi to walk 

apart. 
Self-centred, sole ; and when the 

laughing girls 
To some fair stripling's oaten melody 
Made ready for the dance, I heeded 

not ; 
Nor when to the loud trumpet's blast 

and blare 



ENDYMIOM. 



My peers rode forlli to battle. For, 


Nearer she drew and gazed ; and as I 


one eve, 


lay 


In Latmos, after a long day in June, 


Supine, beneath her spell, the radiance 


I stayed to rest me on a sylvan hill, 


stooped 


Where often youth and maid were wont 


And kissed me on the lips, a chaste. 


to meet 


sweet kiss. 


Toward moonrise ; and deep slumber 


Which drew my spirit with it. So I 


fell on me 


slept 


Musing on Love, just as the ruddy orb 


Each night upon the hill, until the 


Rose on the lucid night, set in a frame 


Dawn 


Of blooming myrtle and sharp tremulous 


Came in his golden chariot from the East, 


plane ; 


And chased my Love away. But ever 


Deep slumber fell, and loosed my limbs 


thus 


in rest. 


Dissolved in love as in a heaven-sent 




dream. 


Then, as the full orb poised upon the 


Whenever the bright circle of the moon 


peak, 


Climbed from the hills, whether in leafy 


There came a lovely vision of a maid. 


June 


Who seemed to step as from a silvery 


Or harvest-tide, or when they leapt and 


skiff 


pressed 


Out of the low-hung moon. No mortal 


Red-thighed the spouting must, I 


form, 


walked apart 


Such as oft times of yore I knew and 


From all, and took no thought for 


clasped 


mortal maid. 


At twilight 'mid the vines at the mad 


Nor nimble joys of youth ; but night 


feast 


by night 


Of Dionysus, or the fair maids cold 


I stole, when all were sleeping, to the 


Who streamed in white processions to 


hill, 


the shrine 


And slumbered and was blest ; until I 


Of the chaste Virgin Goddess ; but a 


grew 


shape 


Possest by love so deep, I seemed to 


Richer and yet more pure. No thinnest 


live 


veil 


In slumbers only, while the waking day 


Obscured her ; but each exquisite limb 


Showed faint as any vision. 


revealed, 


So I grew 


She seemed an ivory statue subtly 


Paler and feebler with the months, and 


wrought 


climbed 


By a great sculptor on the architrave 


The steep with laboured steps and 


Of some high temple-front— only in her 


difficult breath. 


The form was soft and loving, breath- 


But still I climbed. Ay, though the 


ing life. 


wintry frost 


And tender. As I seemed to gaze on 


Chained fast the streams and whitened 


her, 


all the fields, 



226 



END YMIOK 



I sought my mistress through the leafless 


Beamed, and the grapes grew purple. 


groves, 


Many a day 


And shimbered and was happy, till the 


They heaped up gold, they knelt at 


dawn 


festivals, 


Returning found me stretched out, cold 


They waxed in high report and fame of 


and stark, 


men. 


With life's fire nigh burnt out. Tdl 


They gave their girls in marriage ; while 


one clear night. 


for me 


When the birds shivered in the pines. 


Upon the untrodden peaks, the cold, 


and all 


grey morn. 


The inner heavens stood open, lo ! she 


The snows, the rains, the winds, the 


came. 


untempered blaze. 


Brighter and kinder still, and kissed 


Beat year by year, until I turned to 


my eyes 


stone, 


And half-closed lips, and drew my soul 


And the great eagles shrieked at me, 


through them. 


and wheeled 


And in one precious ecstasy dissolved 


Affrighted. Yet I judge it better 


My life. And thenceforth, ever on the 


indeed 


hill 


To seek in life, as now I know I sought. 


I lie unseen of man ; a cold, white form, 


Some fair impossible Love, which slays 


Still young, through all the ages ; but 


our life. 


my soul, 


Some fair ideal raised too high for man; 


Wearing this thin presentment of old 


And failing to grow mad, and cease to 


days, 


be, 


Walks this dim land, where never 


Than to decline, as they do who have 


moonrise comes. 


found 


Nor day-break, but a twilight waiting- 


Broad-paunched content and weal and 


time. 


happiness : 


No more ; and, ah ! how weary ! Yet 


And so an end. For one day, as I 


I judge 


know, 


My lot a higher far than his who spends 


The high aim unfulfilled fulfils itself; 


His youth on swift hot pleasure, quickly 


The deep, unsatisfied thirst is satisfied ; 


past ; 


And through this twilight, broken 


Or theirs, my equals', who through long 


suddenly. 


calm years 


The inmost heaven, the lucent stars of 


Grew sleek in dull content of wedded 


God, 


lives 


The Moon of Love, the Sun of Life;' 


And fair-grown offspring. Many a day 


and I, 


for them. 


I who pine here — I on the Latmian hill 


While I was wandering here, and my 


Shall soar aloft and find them." 


bones bleached 


With the word, 


Upon the rocks, the sweet autumnal 


There beamed a shaft of dawn athwart 


sun 


the skies, 



JFSYCHE. 



227 



I 



And straight the sentinel thrush within 

the yew 
Sang out reveille to the hosts of day, 
Soldierly ; and the pomp and rush of life 
Began once more, and left me there 

alone 
Amid the awaking world. 



Nay, not alone. 
One fair shade lingered in the fuller day, 
The last to come, when now my dream 

had grown 
Half mixed with waking thoughts, as 

grows a dream 
In summer mornings when the broader 

light 
Dazzles the sleeper's eyes ; and is most 

fair 
Of all and best remembered, and 

becomes 
Part of our waking life, when older 

dreams 
Grow fainter, and are fled. So this 

remained 
The fairest of the visions that I knew. 
Most precious and most dear. 

The increasing light 
Shone through her, finer than the 

thinnest shade, 
And yet most full of beauty ; golden 

wings, 
From her fair shoulders springing, 

seemed to raise 
Her stainless feet from the gross earth 

and lift 
Their wearer into air ; and in her eyes 
Was such fair glance as comes from 

virgin love, 
Long chastened and triumphant. 

Every soil 



Of life had vanished from her, and 

she showed 
As one who walks a saint already on 

earth, 
Virgin or mother. Immortality 
Breathed from those radiant eyes which 

yet had passed 
Between the gates of death. I seemed 

to hear 
The Soul of mortals speaking : 

" I was born 
Of a great race and mighty, and was 

grown 
Fair, as they said, and good, and kept 

a life 
Pure from all stain of passion. Love 

I knew not, 
Who M-as absorbed in duty ; and the 

Queen 
Of gods and men, seeing my life more 

calm 
Than human hating my impassive heart, 
Sent down her perfect son in wrath to 

earth. 
And bade him break me. 

But when Eros came. 
It did repent him of the task, for Love 
Is kin to Duty. 

And within my life 
I knew miraculous change, and a soft 

flame 
Wherefrom the snows of Duty flushed 

to rose, ■ 
And the chill icy depths of mind were 

stirred 
By a warm tide of passion. Long I 

lived 
Not knowing what had been, nor re- 
cognized 
A Presence walking with me through 

my life. 
As if by night, his face and form con- 
cealed : 



228 



PSYCHE. 



A gracious voice alone, which none 

but I 
Might hear, sustained me, and its name 

was Love. 

Not as the earthly loves which throb 

and flush 
Round earthly shrines was mine, but 

a pure spirit. 
Lovelier than all embodied love, more 

pure 
And wonderful ; but never on his eyes 
I looked, which still weie hidden, and 

I knew not 
The fashion of his nature ; for by night, 
When visual eyes are blind, but the 

soul sees, 
Came he, and bade me think not to 

make search 
Or whence he came or wherefore. 

Nor knew I 
His name. And always ere the coming 

day, 
As if he were the Sun-god, lingering 
With some too well-loved maiden, he 

would rise 
And vanish until eve. But all my being 
Thrilled with my fair unearthly visitant 
To higher duty and more glorious meed 
Of action than of old, for it was Love 
That came to me, who might not know 

his name. 

Thus, ever rapt by dreams divine, 

I knew 
The scorn that comes from weaker 

souls, which miss. 
Being too low of nature, the great joy 
Revealed to others higher ; nay, my 

sisters. 
Who being of one blood with me, made 

choice 
To tread the flowery ways of daily life, 



Grew jealous of me, bidding me take 

heed 
Lest haply 'twas some monstrous fiend 

I loved, 
Such as in fable ofttimes sought and won 
The innocent hearts of maids. Long 

time I h,eld 
My love too dear for doubt, who was 

so sweet 
And lovable. But at the" last the sneers. 
The mystery which hid him, the swift 

flight 
Before the coming dawn, the shape 

concealed. 
The curious girlish heart, these worked 

on me 
With an unsatisfied thirst. Not his 

own words : 
' Dear, I am with thee only while I keep 
My visage hidden ; and if ihou once 

shouldst see 
My face, I must forsake thee : the 

high gods 
Link Love with Faith, and he with- 
draws himself 
From the full gaze of Knowledge' — 

not even these 
Could cure me of my longing, or the fear 
Those mocking voices worked : who 

fain would learn 
The worst that might befall. 

And one sad night, 
Just ere the day leapt from the hills 

and brought 
The hour when he should go : with 

tremulous hands. 
Lighting my midnight lamp in fear, I 

stood 
Long time uncertain, and at length 

turned round 
And gazed upon my love. He lay asleep, 
And oh, how fair he was ! The flicker- 
ing light 



PSYCHE. 



229 



Fell on the fairest of the gods, stretched 


I wandered over earth, and knelt in each, 


out 


Enquiring for my Love ; and I would ask 


In happy slumber. Looking on his 


The priests and worshippers, ' Is this 


locks 


Love's shrine ? 


Of gold, and faultless face and smile. 


Sirs, have you seen the god ? ' But 


and limbs 


never at all 


Made perfect, a great joy and trembling 


I found him. For some answered, 


took me 


* This is called 


Who was most blest of women, and in 


The Shrine of Knowledge ; ' and 


awe 


another, 'This, 


And fear I stooped to kiss him. One 


The Shrine of Beauty ; ' and another, 


warm drop — 


' Strength ; ' 


From the full lamp within my trembling 


And yet another, 'Youth.' And I 


hand. 


would kneel 


Or a glad tear from my too happy eyes. 


And say a prayer to my Love, and rise 


Fell on his shoulder. 


And seek another. Long, o'er land 


Then the god unclosed 


and sea, 


His lovely eyes, and with great pity 


I wand(jred, till I was not young or fair, 


spake : 


Grown wretched, seeking my lost Love ; 


' Farewell ! There is no Love except 


and last. 


with P'aith, 


Came to the smiling, hateful shrine 


And thine is dead ! Farewell ! I 


where ruled 


come no n^ore.' 


The queen of earthly love and all 


And straightway from the hills the full 


delight. 


red sun 


Cypris, but knelt not there, but asked 


Leapt up, and as I clasped my love 


of one 


again. 


Who seemed her priest, if Eros dwelt 


The lovely vision faded from his place, 


with her. 


And came no more. 




Then I, with breaking heart, 


Then to the subtle-smiling goddess' 


Knowing my life laid waste by my own 


self 


hand. 


They led me. She with hatred in her 


Went forth and would have sought to 


eyes : 


hide my life 


' What ! thou to seek for Love, who 


Within the stream of Death ; but Death 


art grown thin 


came not 


And pale with watching ! He is not 


To aid me who not yet was meet foi- 


for thee. 


Death. 


What Love is left for such? Thou 




didst despise 


Then finding that Love came not 


Love, and didst dwell apart. Love 


back to me. 


sits within 


I thought that in the temples of the gods 


The young maid's eyes, making them 


Haply he dwelt, and so from fane to fane 


beautiful. 



230 



PSYCHE. 



Love is for youth, and joy, and happi- 


Ay, sweeter than of old, and ten- 


ness ; 


derer. 


And not for withered lives. Ho ! 


Speak to me, pierce me, hold me, fold 


bind her fast. 


me round 


Take her and set her to the vilest tasks, 


With arms Divine, till all the sordid 


And bend her pride by solitude and 


earth 


tears, 


Was hued like heaven, and Life's dull 


\Yho vi'iW not kneel to me, but dares to 


prison-house 


seek 


Turned to a golden palace, and those 


A disembodied love. My son has gone 


low tasks 


And left thee for thy fault, and thou 


Giew to be higher works and nobler 


shalt know 


gains 


The misery of my thralls. 


Than any gains of knowledge, and at 


Then in her house 


last 


They bound me to hard tasks and vile, 


He whispered softly, ' Dear, unclose 


and kept 


thine eyes. 


My life from honour, chained among 


Thou mayst look on me now. I go no 


her slaves 


more, 


And lowest ministers, taking despite 


But am thine own for ever.' 


And injury for food, and set to bind 


Then with wings 


Their wounds whom she had tortured. 


Of gold we soared, I looking m his 


and to feed 


eyes. 


The pitiful lives \s\\\c\\ in her prisons 


Over yon dark broad river, and this 


pent 


dim land, 


Languished in hopeless pain. There is 


Scarce for an instant staying till we 


no sight 


reached 


Of suffering but I saw it, and was set 


The inmost courts of heaven. 


To succour it j and all my woman's 


. But sometimes L^till 


heart 


I come here for a little, and speak a 


Was torn with the ineffable miseries 


word 


Which love and life have worked ; and 


Of peace to those who wait. The 


dwelt long time 


slow wheel turns. 


In groanings and in tears. 


The cycles round themselves and grow- 


And then, oh joy ! 


complete. 


Oh miracle ! once more again at length 


The world's year whitens to the 


I felt Love's arms around me, and the 


harvest-tide, 


kiss 


And one word only am I sent to say 


Of Love upon my lips, and in the chill 


To those dear souls, who wait here, or 


Of deepest prison cells, 'mid vilest tasks, 


who now 


The glow of his sweet breath, and the 


Breathe earthly air — one universal 


warm touch 


word 


Of his invisible hand, and his sweet 


To all things living, and the word i.s 


voice, 


'Love.'" 



OL YMFUS. 



Then soared she visibly before my 


Some unheard measure, passing where 


gaze, 


I stood 


And the heavens took her, and I knew 


In fair procession, each with a faint 


my eyes 


smile 


Had seen the Soul of man, the death- 


Upon the lip, signing "Farewell, oh 


less Soul, 


shade ! 


Defeated, struggling, purified, and blest. 


It shall be well with thee, as 'tis with us, 




If only thou art true. The world of 
Life, 






The world of Death, are but opposing 


Then all the choir of happy waiting 


sides 


shades, 


Of one great orb, and the Light shines 


Heroes and queens, fair maidens and 


on both. 


brave youths. 


Oh, happy, happy shade ! Farewell ! 


Swept by me, rhythmic, slow, as if they 


Farewell ! " 


trod 


And so they passed away. 



BOOK III. 
OLYMPUS. 



But I, my gaze 
Following the soaring soul which now 

was lost 
In the awakening skies, floated with 

her, 
As in a trance, beyond the golden gates 
AYhich separate Earth from Heaven ; 

and to my thought. 
Gladdened by that broad effluence of 

light, 



The fair and fugitive fancies of a 

dream, 
Which vanish ere we fix them ? 

But me thinks 
He knows the scene, who knows the 

one fair day. 
One only and no more, which year by 

year 
In springtime comes, when lingering 

winter flies. 



This old earth seemed transfigured, and ; And lo ! the bare boughs prankt with 



the fields, 
So dim and bare, grew green and 

clothed themselves 
With lustrous hues. A fine ethereal air 
Played round me as I mused, and filled 

the soul 
With an ineffable content. What help 
In words to tell of things unreached by 

words ? 
Or how to engrave upon the treacherous 

thought 



white and pink. 
And golden clusters, and the green 

glades starred 
With delicate primrose and deep 

odorous beds 
Of violets, and on the tufted meads 
With kingcups lit, and cowslip bells, 

and blue 
Sweet hyacinths, and frail anemones, 
The broad West wind breathes softly, 

and the air 



2^2 



OL YMPUS. 



Is tremulous with the lark, and thro' 

the woods 
The soft full-throated thrushes all day 

long 
Flood the green dells with joy, and 

thro' the dry 
Brown fields the sower strides, sowing 

his seed. 
And all is life and song. Or he who 

first. 
Whether in fair free boyhood, when the 

world 
Is his to choose, or when his fuller life 
Beats to another life, or afterwards. 
Keeping his youth within his children's 

eyes. 
Looks on the snow-clad everlasting 

hills, 
And marks the sunset smite them, and 

is glad 
Of the beautiful fair world. 

A springtide land 
It seemed, where East winds came not. 

Sweetest song 
Was everywhere, by glade or sunny 

plain ; 
And thro' the golden valleys winding 

streams 
Rippled in glancing silver, and above, 
The blue hills rose, and overall a peak, 
White, awful, with a constant fleece of 

cloud 
Veiling its summit, towered. Unfailing 

Day 
Lighted it, for no turn of dawn and eve 
Came there, nor changing seasons, but 

a broad 
Fixed joy of Being, undisturbed by 

Time. 

There, in a happy glade shut in by 
groves 
Of laurel and sweet myrtle, on a green 



And (lower-lit lawn, I seemed to see 

the ghosts 
Of the old gods. Upon the gentle slope 
Of a fair hill, a joyous company, 
The Immortals lay. Hard by, a mur- 
murous stream 
Fell through the flowers ; below them, 

space on space, 
Laughed the immeasurable plains ; 

beyond, 
The mystic mountain soared. Height 

after height 
Of bare rock ledges left the climbing 

pines, 
And reared their giddy, shining terraces 
Into the ethereal air. Above, ihc snows 
Of the white summit cleft the fleece of 

cloud 
Which always clothed it round. 

Ah, fair and sweet, 
Yet with a ghostly fairness, fine and 

thin. 
Those godlike Presences. Not dreams 

indeed, 
But something dream-like, were they. 

Blessed Shades 
Heroic and Divine, as when, in days 
When Man was young, and Time, tlie 

vivid thought 
Translated into Form the unattained 
Impossible Beauty of men's dreams, 

and fixed 
The Loveliness in marble. 

As with awe 
Following my spotless guide, I stood 

apart, 
Not daring to draw near ; a shining form 
Rose from the throng, and floated, 

light as air, 
To where I trembled. And I knew 

the face 
And form of Artemis, the fair, the pure, 
The undefiled. A crescent silvery moon 



ARTEMIS. 



233 



Shone thro' her locks, and by her side 

she bore 
A quiver of golden darts, Al sight of 

whom 
I felt a sudden chill, like his who once 
Looked upon her and died ; yet could 

not fear, 
Seeing how fair she was. Her sweet 

voice rang 
Clear as a bird's : 

" Mortal, what fate hath brought 
Thee hither, uncleansed by death ? 

How canst thou breathe 
Immortal air, being mortal ! Yet fear 

not, 
Since thou art come. For we too are 

of earth 
Whom here thou seest : there were not 

a heaven 
Were there no earth, nor gods, had men 

not been, 
But each the complement of each and 

grown 
The other's creature, is and has its being, 
A double essence. Human and Divine. 
So that the God is hidden in the man. 
And something Human bounds and 

forms the God ; 
Which else had shown too great and 

undefined 
I'or mortal sight, and having no human 

eye 
To see it, were unknown. But we who 

bore 
Sway of old time, we were but attributes 
* Of the great God who is all Things 

that be — 
The Pillar of the Earth and starry Sky, 
The Depth of the great Deep ; the Sun, 

the Moon, 
The W'ord which Makes; the All- 
compelling Love — 
* See the Orphic Hymns. 



For all Things lie within His Lifinitc 
Form." 

Even as she spake, a throng of shapes 

divine 
Floated around me, filling all my soul 
With fair unearthly beauty, and the air 
\\'ith such ambrosial perfume as is born. 
When morning breathes upon a tropic 

sea. 
From boundless wastes of flowers ; and 

as I knelt 
hi rapture, lo ! the same clear voice 

again 
From out the throng of gods : 

" Those whom thou seest 
Were even as T, embodiments of Him 
Who is the Centre of all Life : myself 
The Maiden-Queen of Purity ; and 

Strength, 
Divine when unabused ; Love too, the 

.Spring 
And Cause of Things ; and Knowledge, 

which lays bare 
Their secret ; and calm Duty, Queen 

of all, 
And Motherhood in one ; and Youth, 

which bears, 
Beauty of Form and Life and Light, 

and breathes 
The breath of Inspiration ; and the Soul , 
The particle of God, sent down to man, 
W^hich doth in turn reveal the world 

and God. 

W^herefore it is men called on 

Artemis, 
The refuge of young souls ; for still in 

age 
They keep some dim reflection unefifaced 
Of a Diviner Purity than comes 
To the spring days of youth, when all 

the world 



231 



ARTEMIS. 



Smiles, and the rapid blood thro' the 

young veins 
Courses, and all is glad ; yet knowing 

too 
That innocence is young — before the soil 
And smirch of sadder knowledge, 

settling on it, 
Sully its primal whiteness. So they 

knelt 
At my white shrines, the eager boyish 

souls, 
To whom life's road showed like a dewy 

field 
In early summer dawns, when to the 

sound 
Of youth's clear voice, and to the 

cheerful rush 
Of the tumultuous feet and clamorous 

tongues 
Careering onwards, fair and dappled 

fawns, 
Strange birds with jewelled plumes, 

fierce spotted pards. 
Rise in the joyous chase, to be caught 

and slain 
By the young conqueror ; nor yet the 

charm 
Of sensual ease allures. And they knelt 

too, 
The pure sweet maidens fair and fancy- 
free, 
Whose innocent virgin hearts shrank 

from the touch 
Of passion as fi^om wrong — sweet moon- 
lit lives 
Which fade, and pale, and vanish, in 

the glare 
Of Love's hot noontide : these came 

robed in white, 
With holy hymns and soaring liturgies : 
And so men fabled me, a huntress now. 
Borne thro' the flying woodlands, fair 

and free j 



And now the pale cold Moon, Light 

without warmth, 
Zeal without touch of passion, heavenly 

love 
For human, and the altar for the home. 

But oh, how sweet it was to take the 

love 
And awe of my young worshippers ; to 

watch 
The pure young gaze and hear the pure 

young voice 
Mount in the hymn, or see the gay 

troop come 
With the first dawn of day, brushing 

the dew 
From the unpolluted fields, and wake 

to song 
The slumbering birds ; strong in their 

innocence ! 
I did not envy any goddess of all 
The Olympian company her votaries ! 
Ah, happy days of old which now are 

gone ! 
A memory and a dream ! for now on 

earth 
I rule no longer o'er young willing 

hearts 
In voluntary fealty, which would cease 
When Love, with fiery accents calling, 

woke 
The slumbering soul ; as now it should 

for those 
Who kneel before the purer, sadder 

shrine 
Which has replaced my own. But ah ! 

too oft. 
Not always, but too often, shut from 

life 
Within pale life-long cloisters and the 

bars 
Of hopeless convent prisons, year by 

year, 



HERAKLES. 



23^ 



Age after age, the white souls fade and 

pine 
^Vhich simulate the joyous service free 
Of those young worshippers. 1 would 

that I 
Might loose the captives' chain ; or 

Herakles, 
Who was a mortal once." 



But he who stood 
Colossal at my side : 

" I toil no more 
On earth, nor wield again the mighty 

strength 
^\'hich Zeus once gave me for the cure 

of ill. 
I have run my race ; I have done my 

work ; I rest 
P\)r ever from the toilsome days I gave 
'i"o the suffering race of men. And yet, 

indeed, 
Methinks they suffer still. Tyrannous 

growths 
And monstrous vex them still. Pesti- 
lence lurks 
And sweeps them down. Treacheries 

come, and wars, 
And slay them still. Vaulting ambition 

leaps 
And falls in bloodshed still. But I am 

here 
At rest, and no man kneels to me, or 

keeps 
Reverence for strength mighty yet un- 

abused — 
Strength which is Power, God's choicest 

gift, more rare 
And precious than all Beauty, or the 

charm 
Of Wisdom, since it is the instrument 



Thro' which all Nature works. For 

now the earth 
Is full of meekness, and a new God 

rules. 
Teaching strange precepts of humility 
And mercy and forgiveness. Yet I 

trow 
There is no lack of bloodshed and 

deceit 
And groanings, and the tyrant works 

his wrong 
Even as of old ; but now there is no 

arm 
Like mine, made 'strong by Zeus, to 

beat him down, 
Him and his wrong together. Yet I 

know 
I am not all discrowned. The strong 

brave souls, 
The manly tender hearts, whom tale of 

wrong 
To woman or child, to all weak things 

and small, 
Fires Hke a blow ; kindling the righteous 

flush 
Of anger on the brow ; knotting the 

cords 
Of muscle on the arm ; with one desire 
To hew the spoiler down, and make an 

end, 
And go their way for others ; making 

light 
Of toil and pain, and too laborious days. 
And peril ; beat unchanged, albeit they 

serve 
A Lord of meekness. For the world 

still needs 
Its champion as of old, and finds him 

still. 
Not always now with mighty sinews 

and thews 
Like mine, though still these profit, but 

keen brain 



I 



236 



APHRODITE. 



And voice to move men's souls to love 


But bearing, as it seemed, some faintest 


the right 


trace 


And hate the wrong ; even tho' the 


Of earthly struggle still, not the gay 


bodily form 


ease 


Be weak, of giant strength, strong to 


Of the elder heaven-born gods. 


assail 




The hydra heads of Evil, and to slay 




The monsters that now waste them : 




Ignorance, 




Self-seeking, coward fears, the hate of 


And then there came 


Man, 


Beauty and Joy m one, bearing the form 


Disguised as love of God. These 


Of woman. How to reach with halting 


labour still • 1' 


words 


With toil as hard as mine. P'or what 


That infinite Perfection? All have 


was it 


known 


To strive with bodily ills, and do great 


The breathing marbles which the Greek 


deeds 


has left 


Of daring and of strength, and bear the 


Who saw her near, and strove to fix her 


crown, 


charms, 


To his high task who wages lifelong 


And exquisitely failed ; or those fair 


strife 


forms 


With an impalpable foe ; conquering 


The Painter offered at a later shrine. 


indeed. 


And failed. Nay, what are words? — 


But, ere he hears the pcean or sees the 


he knows it well 


pomp 


Who loves, or who has loved. 


Laid low in the arms of Death? And 


She with a smile 


tho' men cease 


Playing around her rosy lips ; as plays 


To worship at my shrine, yet not the 


The sunbeam on a stream : 


less 


" Shall I complain 


It is the toils I knew, the pains I bore 


Men kneel to me no longer, taking to 


'For others, which have kept the stead- 


them 


fast heart 


Some graver, sterner worship ; grown 


Of manhood undefiled, and nerved the 


too wise 


arm 


For fleeting joys of Love ? Nay, Love 


Of sacrifice, and made the martyr strong 


is Youth, 


To do and bear, and taught the race of 


And still the world is young. Still 


men 


shall I reign 


How godlike 'tis to suffer thro' life, and 


Within the hearts of men, while Time 


die 


shall last 


At last for others' good ! " 


And Life renews itself. All Life that 


The strong god ceased. 


is, 


And stood a little, musing ; blest in- 


From the weak things of earth or .^ea 


deed, 


or air, 



APHRODITE. 



^yi 



Which creep or float for an hour ; to 

godlike man — 
All know me and are mine. I am the 

source 
And mother of all, both gods and men ; 

the spring 
Of Force and Joy, which, penetrating 

all 
Within the hidden depths of the Un- 
known, 
Sets the blind germ of Being, and from 

the bond 
Of incomplete and dual Essences 
Evolves the harmony which is Life. 

The world 
W^ere dead without my rays, who am 

the Light 
Which vivifies the world. Nay, but for 

me, 
The universal order which attracts 
Sphere unto sphere, and keeps them in 

their paths 
For ever, were no more. All things 

are bound 
W^ithin my golden chain, whose name 

is Love. 

And if there be, indeed, some sterner 

souls 
Or sunk in too much learning, or 

hedged round 
By care and greed, or haply too much 

rapt 
By pale ascetic fervours, to delight 
To kneel to me, the universal voice 
Scorns them as those who, spurning 

wilfully 
The good that Nature offers, dwell un- 

blest 
W^ho might be blest, but would not. 

Every voice 
Of bard in every age has hymned me. 

All 



The breathing marbles, all the glowing 

hues 
Of painting, praise me. Even the love- 
less shades 
Of dim monastic cloisters show some 

gleam, 
Tho' faint, of me. Amid the busy 

throngs 
Of cities reign I, and o'er lonely 

plains. 
Beyond the ice-fields of the frozen 

North 
And the warm waves of undiscovered 

seas. 

For I was born out of the sparkling 

foam 
Which lights the crest of the blue mystic 

wave, 
Stirred by the wandering breath of Life's 

pure dawn 
From a young soul's clear depths. 

There, without voice, 
Stretched on the breathing curve of a 

young breast. 
Fluttering a little, fiesh from the great 

deep 
Of life, and creamy as the opening rose. 
Naked I lie, naked yet unashamed, 
W^hile youth's warm tide steals round 

me with a kiss. 
And floods each limb with fairness. 

Shame I know not — 
Shame is for wrong, and not for inno- 
cence — 
The veil which Error grasps to hide 

itself 
From the awful Eye. But I, I lie un- 
veiled 
And unashamed — the livelong day I 

lie, 
The warm wave murmuring to me ; and, 

all night, 



238 



APHRODITE. 



Hidden in the moonlit caves of happy 

Sleep, 
I dream until the morning and am glad. 

Why should I seek to clothe myself, 

and hide 
The treasure of my Beauty ? Shame 

may wait 
On those for whom 'twas given. The 

sties of sense 
Are none of mine ; the brutish, loveless 

wrong, 
The venal charm, the simulated flush 
Of fleshly passion, they are none of 

mine, 
Only corruptions of me. Well I 

know 
The counterfeit the stronger, since gross 

souls 
And brutish sway the earth ; yet not the 

less 
All sense is consecrated, and I deem 
'Twere better to grow soft and sink in 

sense 
Than gloat o'er blood and wrong. 

My kingdom is 
O'er infinite grades of life. Yet 'tis in 

man 
I find my worthiest worship. Where 

man is, 
A youth and a maid, a youth and a 

maid, nought else 
Is wanting for my temple. Every 

clime 
Kneels to me— the long breaker falls in 

foam 
Under the palms, swelling the merry 

noise 
Of savage bridals, and the straight brown 

limbs 
Know me, and over all the endless 

plains 



I reign, and by the tents on the hot 

sand 
And sea-girt isles am queen, and by the 

sides 
Of silent mountains, where the white 

cots gleam 
Upon the green hill pastures, and no 

sound 
But the thunder of the avalanche is 

borne 
To the listening rocks around ; and by 

fair lands 
Where all is peace ; where thro' the 

happy hush 
Of tranquil summer evenings, 'mid the 

corn, 
Or thro' cool arches of the gadding 

vines, 
The lovers stray together hand in hand, 
Hymning my praise ; and by the 

echoing streets 
Of stately cities — o'er the orbed earth. 
The burning South, the icy North, the 

old 
And immemorial East, the unbounded 

West, 
No new god conies to spoil me utterly — 
All M'orship and are mine ! ' 

With a sweet smile 
Upon her rosy mouth, the goddess 

ceased ; 
And when she spake no more, the 

silence weighed 
As heavy on my soul as when it takes 
Some gracious melody, and leaves the 

ear 
Unsatisfied and longing, till the fount 
Of sweetness springs again. 



ATHENE. 



239 



But while I stood 


Shows impotent. And yet I know 


Expectant, lo ! a fair pale form drew 


there is, 


near 


Far off, but not too far for mortal reach. 


With front severe, and wide blue eyes 


A calmer height, where, nearer to the 


which bore 


stars, 


Mild wisdom in their gaze. Clear 


Thought sits alone and gazes with rapt 


purity- 


gaze. 


Shone from her — not the young-eyed 


A large-eyed maiden in a robe of white, 


innocence 


Who brings the light of Knowledge 


Of her whom first I saw, but that which 


down, and draws 


comes 


To her pontifical eyes a bridge of gold, 


From wider knowledge, which restrains 


Which spans from earth to heaven. 


the tide 


For what were life. 


Of passionate youth, and leads the 


If things of sense were all, for those 


musing soul 


large souls 


By the calm deeps of Wisdom. And 


And high, whom grudging Nature has 


I knew 


shut fast 


My eyes had seen the fair, the virgin 


Within unlovely forms, or from whose 


Queen, 


life 


Who once within her shining Parthenon 


The circuit of the rapid glidmg years 


Beheld the sages kneel. 


Steals the brief gift of beauty? Shall 


She with clear voice 


men hold 


And coldly sweet, yet with a softness 


With idle singers, all the treasure of 


too. 


hope 


Such as befits a virgin : 


Is lost with youth — swift-fleeting. 


" She doth right 


treacherous youth. 


To boast her sway, my sister, seeing 


Which fades and flies before the ripen- 


indeed 


ing brain 


That all things are as by a double law, 


Crowns life' with Wisdom's crown ? 


And from a double root the tree of 


Nay, even in youth, 


Life 


Is it not more to tread the difficult 


Springs up to the face of heaven. Body 


heights 


and Soul, 


Alone— the cold free heights— and mark 


Matter and Spirit, lower joys of Sense 


the vale 


And higher joys of Thought, I know 


Lie breathless in the glare, or hidden 


that both 


and blurred 


Build up the shrine of Being. The 


By cloud and storm ; or pestilence and 


brute sense 


war 


Leaves man a brute ; but, winged with 


Creep on with blood and death ; while 


soaring thought 


the soul dwells 


Mounts to high heaven. The un- 


Apart upon the peaks, outfronts the sun 


embodied spirit, 


As the eagle does, or takes the coming 


Dwelling alone, unmated, void of sense, 


dawn 



2 40 



A THENE, 



While all the vale is dark, and knows 

the springs 
Of liny rivulets hurrying from the snows, 
Which soon shall swell to vast resistless 

floods, 
And feed the Oceans which divide the 

World ? 

Oh, ecstasy! oh, wonder! oh, delight ! 
Which neither the slow-withering wear 

of Time, 
That lakes all else — the smooth and 

rounded cheek 
Of youth ; the lightsome step ; the 

warm young heart 
Which beats for love or friend ; the 

treasure of hope 
Immeasurable ; the quick-coursing 

blood 
Which makes it joy to be, — ay, takes 

them all 
Or makes them naught — nor yet satiety 
Born of too full possession, takes or 

mars ! 
Oh, fair delight of learning ! which 

grows great 
And stronger and more keen, for slower 

limbs. 
And dimmer eyes and Idneliness, and 

loss 
Of lower good — wealth, friendship, ay, 

and Love — 
When the swift soul, turning its weary 

gaze 
From the old vanished joys, projects 

itself 
Into the void and floats in empty space, 
Striving to reach the mystic source of 

Things, 
The secrets of the earth and sea and 

air. But as they died, 

The Law that binds the process of the I heard an ampler voice ; and looking, 

suns, marked 



The awful depths of Mind and Thought ; 

the prime 
Unfathomable mystery of God ! 

Is there, then, any who holds my 

worship cold 
And lifeless? Nay, but 'tis the light 

which cheers 
The waning life ! Love thou thy love, 

brave youth ! 
Cleave to thy love, fair maid ! it is tlie 

Law 
Which dominates the world, that bids 

ye use 
Your nature ; but, when now the fuller 

tide 
Slackens a little, turn your calmer eyes 
To the fair page of Knowledge. It is 

power 
I give, and power is precious. It is 

strength 
To live four-square, careless of outward 

shows, 
And self-suflicing. It is clearer sight 
To know the rule of life, the Eternal 

scheme ; 
And, knowing it, to do and not to err, 
And, doing, to be blest." 

The calm voice soared 
Higher and higher to the close ; the 

cold 
Clear accents, fired as by a hidden fire, 
Glowed into life and tenderness, and 

throbbed 
As with some spiritual ecstasy 
Sweeter than that of Love. 



HERE. 



241 



A fair and gracious form. She seemed 


And yet is hard to tread, tho' seeming 


a Queen 


smooth, 


Who ruled o'er gods and men ; the 


And yet, tho' level, finds a worthier 


majesty 


crown. 


Of perfect womanhood. No opening 




bud 


For Knowledge is a steep which few 


Of beauty, but the full consummate 


may climb, 


flower 


While Duty is a path which all may tread . 


Was hers ; and from her mild large 


And if the Goal of Life and Thought 


eyes looked forth 


be this, 


Gentle command, and motherhood, and 


How best to speed the mighty scheme. 


home, 


which still 


And pure affection. Awe and reverence 


Fares onward day by day — the Life of 


O'erspread me, as I knew my eyes had 


the World, 


looked 


Which is the sum of petty lives, that 


On sovereign Here, mother of the gods. 


wane 




And die so this may live— how then 


She, with clear, rounded utterance. 


shall each 


sweet and calm : 


Of that great multitude of faithful souls 


"I know the charm of stainless Inno- 


Who walk not on the heights, fulfil 


cence : 


himself. 


I know Love's fruit is good and fair 


But by the duteous Life which looks 


to see 


not forth 


And taste, if any gain it, and I know 


Beyond its narrow sphere, and finds its 


How brief Youth's Passion-tide, which 


work, 


when it ebbs 


And works it out ; content, this done, 


Leaves Life athirst for Knowledge, and 


to fall 


I know 


And perish, if Fate will, so the great 


How fair the realm of Mind, where 


Scheme 


the keen soul 


Goes onward ? 


Yearning to rise, wings its impetuous 


Wherefore am I Queen in Heaven 


way 


And Earth, whose realm is Duty, bear- 


Beyond the bounds of Thought ; and 


ing rule 


yet there is 


More constant and more wide than 


A higher bliss than theirs, which best 


those whose words 


befits 


Thou heardest last. Mine are the 


A mortal life, compact of Body and Soul, 


striving souls 


And therefore double-natured— a calm 


Of fathers plodding day by day obscure 


path 


And unrewarded, save by their own 


Which lies before the feet, thro' common 


hearts, 


ways 


M id wranglings of the Forum or the mar t ; 


And undistinguished crowds of toiling 


Who long for joys of Thought, and yet 


men, 


must toil 



242 



HERE. 



Unmurmuring thro' dull lives from 


Which no man recks of, rear the stately 


youth to age ; 


tree 


Who haply might have worn instead 


Of Knowledge, not for itself sought 


the crown 


out, but found 


Of Honour and of Fame : mine the fair 


In the dusty waysof life— a fairer growth 


mothers 


Than springs in cloistered shades ; and 


Who, for the love of children and of 


from the sum 


home, 


Of Duty, blooms sweeter and more 


When pnssioa dies, expend their careful 


divine 


years 


The fair ideal of the Race, than comes 


lu loving labour sweetened by the 


From glittering gains of Learning. 


sense 


Life, full life. 


Of Duty : mine the statesman who 


Full-flowered, full-fruited, reared from 


toils on 


homely earth. 


Thro' vigilant nights and days, guiding 


Rooted in duty, and thro' long calm 


his State, 


years 


Yet finds no gratitude ; and those white 


Bearing its load of healthful energies ; 


souls 


Stretching its arms on all sides ; fed 


Who give themselves for others all their 


with dews 


years 


Of cheerful sacrifice, and clouds of care, 


In trivial tasks of Pity. The fine 


And rain of useful tears ; warmed by 


growths 


the sun 


Of Man and Time are mine, and spend 


Of calm affection, till it breathes itself 


themselves 


In perfume to the heavens— this is the 


For me and for the mystical End which 


prize 


lies 


I hold most dear, more precious than 


Beyond their gaze and mine, and yet is 


the fruit 


good, 


Of Knowledge or of Love." 


Tho' hidden from men and gods. 


The goddess ceased 


For as the flower 


As dies some gracious harmony, the 


Of the tiger-lily gay with varied hues 


child 


Is for a day, then fades and leaves be- 


Of wedded themes which single and 


hind 


alone 


Fairness nor fruit, while the green tiny 


Were discords, but united breathe a 


tuft 


sound 


Swells to the purple of the clustering 


Sweet as the sounds of heaven. 


grape 




Or golden waves of wheat ; so lives of 




men 




Which show most splendid, fade and 




are deceased 


And then stood forth 


And leave no trace ; while those, un- 


The last of the gods I saw, the first in 


marked, unseen, 


place 



APOLLO. 



243 



And dignity and beauty, the young 
god 

Who grows not old, the Light of 
Heaven and Earth, 

The Worker from afar, who darts tlie 
fire 

Of inspiration on the bard and bathes 

The world in hues of heaven — the 
golden link 

Between High God and Man. 

With a sweet voice 

Whose every note was perfect me- 
lody — 

The melody has fled, the words re- 
main — 

Apollo sang : 

" I know how fair the face 

Of Purity ; I know the treasure of 
Strength ; 

I know the charm of Love, the calmer 
grace 

Of Wisdom and of Duteous well-spent 
lives : 

And yet there is a loftier height than 
these. 

There is a Height higher than mortal 

thought ; 
There is a Love warmer than mortal 

love ; 
There is a Life which, taking not its 

hues 
From Earth or earthly things, grows 

white and pure 
And higher than the petty cares of 

men, 
And is a blessed life and glorified. 

Oh, fair young souls, strain upward, 
upward still, 
Even to the heavenly source of Purity ! 
Brave hearts, bear on and suffer ! 
Strike for right, 



Strong arms, and hew down wrong ! 

The world hath need 
Of all of you — the sensual, wrongful 

world ! 

Hath need of you, and of thee too, 

fair Love. 
Oh, lovers, cling together ! the old 

world 
Is full of Hate. Sweeten it ; draw in 

one 
Two separate chords of Life ; and 

from the bond 
Of twin souls lost in Harmony create 
A Fair God dwelling with you — Love 

the Lord ! 

Waft yourselves, yearning souls, upon 

the stars ; 
Sow yourselves on the wandering winds 

of space ; 
Watch patient all your days, if your 

eyes take 
Some dim, cold ray of Knowledge. 

The dull world 
Hath need of you — the purblind, 

slothful world \ 

Live on, brave lives, chained to the 

narrow round 
Of Duty ; live, expend yourselves, and 

make 
The orb of Being wheel on steadfastly 
Upon its path — the Lord of Life 

alone 
Knows to what goal of Good ; work on, 

live on : 
And yet there is a higher work than 

yours. 

To have looked upon the face of the 
Unknown 
And Perfect Beauty. To have heard 
the voice 



244 



AFOLLO. 



Of Godhead in the winds and in the 

seas. 
To have known Him in the circling of 

the suns, 
And in the changeful fates and lives of 

men. 

To be fulfilled with Godhead as a cup 
Filled with a precious essence, till the 

hand 
On marble or on canvas falling, leaves 
Celestial traces, or from reed or string 
Draws out faint echoes of the voice 

Divine 
That bring God nearer to a faithless 

world. 

Or, higher still and fairer and more 

blest. 
To be Plis seer, His prophet ; to be 

the voice 
Of the Ineffable Word ; to be the glass 
Of the Ineffable Light, and bring them 

down 
To bless the earth, set in a shrine of 

Song. 

For Knowledge is a barren tree and 

bare, 
Bereft of God, and Duty but a word, 
And Strength but Tyranny, and Love, 

Desire, 
And Purity a folly ; and the Soul, 
Which brings down God to Man, the 

Light to the world ; 
He is the Maker, and is blest, is blest !" 

He ended, and I felt my soul grow 
faint 
With too much sweetness. 

In a mist of grace 
They faded, that bright company, and 
seemed 



To melt into each other and shape 

themselves 
Into new forms, and those fair god- 
desses 
Blent in a perfect woman — all the calm 
High motherhood of Here, the sweet 

smile 
Of Cypris, fair Athene's earnest eyes. 
And the young purity of Artemis, 
Blent in a perfect woman ; and in her 

arms. 
Fused by some cosmic interlacing curves 
Of Beauty into a new Innocence, 
A child with eyes divine, a little child, 
A little child— no more. 

And those great gods 
Of Power and Beauty left a heavenly 

form 
Strong not to act but suffer ; fair and 

meek. 
Not proud and eager ; with soft eyes 

of grace, 
Not bold with joyous youth ; and for 

the fire 
Of song, and for the happy careless life, 
A sorrowful pilgrimage — changed, yet 

the same, 
Only Diviner far ; and bearing higher 
The Life God-lighted and the Sacrifice. 

And when these faded wholly, at my 

side, 
Tho' hidden before by those too-radiant 

forms, 
I was aware once more of her, my guide 
Psyche, who had not left me, floatmg 

near 
On golden wings ; and all the plains of 

heaven 
Were left to us, me and my soul alone. 

Then when my thought revived 
again, I said 



ZEUS. 



24') 



Whispering, " But Zeus I saw not, the 

prime Source 
And Sire of all the gods." 

And she, bent low 
With downcast eyes : " Nay. Thou 

hast seen of Him 
All that thine eyes can bear, in those 

fair forms 
Which are but parts of Him and are 

indeed 
Attributes of the Substance which sup- 
ports 
The Universe of Things — the Soul of 

the World, 
The Stream which flows Eternal, from 

no Source 
Into no Sea. His Purity, His Strength, 
His Love, His Knowledge, His un- 
changing rule 
Of Duty, thou hast seen, only a part 
And not the whole, being a finite mind 
Too weak for infinite thought ; nor, 

couldst thou see 
All of Him visible to mortal sight, 
Wouldst thou see all His essence, since 

the gods — 
Glorified essences of Human mould. 
Who are but Zeus made visible to 

men — 
See Him not wholly, only some thin 

edge 
And halo of His glory ; nor know they 
What vast and unsuspected Universes 
Lie beyond thought, where yet He 

rules, like those 
Vast Suns we cannot see, round which 

our Sun 
Moves with his system, or those darker 

still 
Which not even thus we know, but yet 

exist 
Tho' no eye marks, nor thought itself, 

and lurk 



In the awful Depths of Space ; or that 

which is 
Not orbed as yet, but indiscrete, con- 
fused, 
Sown thro' the void — the faintest gleam 

of light 
Which sets itself to Be. And yet is 

He 
There too, and rules, none seeing. 

But sometimes 
To this our heaven, which is so like to 

earth 
But nearer to Him, for awhile He shows 
Some gleam of His own brightness, and 

methinks 
It Cometh soon; but thou, if thou 

shouldst gaze, 
Thy Life will rush to His — the tiny 

spark 
Absorbed in that full blaze— and what 

there is 
Of mortal fall from thee." 

But I: "Oh, soul, 
What holdeth Life more precious than 

to know 
The Giver and to die? " 

Then she: "Behold! 
Look upward and adore." 

And with the word, 
Unhasting, undelaying, gradual, sure, 
The floating cloud which clothed the 

hidden peak 
Rose slow in awful silence, laying bare 
Spire after rocky spire, snow after snow. 
Whiter and yet more dreadful, till at 

last 
It left the summit clear. 

Then with a bound, 
In the twinkling of an eye, in the flash 

of a thought, 
I knew an Awful Effluence of Light, 
Formless, Ineftable, Perfect, burst on 
me 



246 



THE EPIC OF HADES. 



And flood my being round, and draw 


And as I went 


my life 


Across the lightening fields, upon a 


Into itself. I saw my guide bent down 


bank 


Prostrate, her wings before her face ; 


I saw a single snowdrop glance, and 


and then 


bring 


No more. 


Promise of Spring ; and keeping my 




old thought 




In the old fair Hellenic vesture dressed, 




I felt myself a ghost, and seemed to be 




Now fair Adonis hasting to the arms 


But when I woke from my long 


Of his lost love — now sad Persephone 


trance 


Restored to mother earth— or that high 


Behold, it was no longer Tartarus, 


shade 


Nor Hades, nor Olympus, but the bare 


Orpheus, who gave up heaven to save 


And unideal aspect of the fields 


his love. 


Which Spring not yet had kissed— the 


And is rewarded— or young Marsyas, 


strange old Earth 


Who spent his youth and life for song. 


So far more fabulous now than in the 


and yet 


days 


Was happy though in torture— or the 


When Man was young, nor yet the 


fair 


mystery 


And dreaming youth I saw, who still 


Of Time and Fate transformed it. From 


awaits, 


the hills, 


Hopeful, the unveiling heaven, when 


The long night fled at last, the un- 


he shall see 


clouded sun, 


His fair ideal love. The birds sang 


The dear, fair sun, leapt upward swift, 


blithe ; 


and smote 


There came a tinkling from the waking 


My sight with rays of gold, and pierced 


fold ; 


my brain 


And on the hillside from the cot a girl 


With too much light ere my entranced 


Tripped singing with her pitcher. All 


eyes 


the sounds 


Could hide themselves. 


And thoughts which still are beautiful — 


And I was on the Earth 


Youth, Song, 


Dreaming the dream of Life again, as 


Dawn, Spring, Renewal — and my soul 


late 


was glad 


I dreamed the dream of Death. 


Of all the freshness, and I felt again 


Another day 


The youth and spring-tide of the w orld, 


Dawned on the race of men ; another 


and thought, 


world ; 


Which feigned those fair and gracious 


New heavens, and new earth. 


fantasies. 




For every dawn that breaks brings a 




new worlds 



THE EPIC OF HADES. 



247 



And every budding bosom a new life ; 


How should any hold 


These fair tales, which we know so 


Those precious scriptures only old- 


beautiful, 


world tales 


Show only finer than our lives to-day 


Of strange impossible torments and 


Because their voice was clearer, and 


false gods ; 


they found 


Of men and monsters in some brainless 


A sacred bard to sing them. We are 


dream. 


pent. 


Coherent, yet unmeaning, linked to- 


Who smg to-day, by all the garnered 


gether 


wealth 


By some false skein of song ? 


Of ages of past song. We have no 


Nay ! evermore, 


more 


All things and thoughts, both new and 


The world to choose from, who, 


old, are writ 


where'er we turn, 


Upon the unchanging human heart and 


Tread through old thoughts and fair. 


soul. 


Yet must we sing — 


Has Passion still no prisoners ? Pine 


We have no choice ; and if more hard 


there now 


the toil 


No lives which fierce Love, sinking into 


In noon, when all is clear, than in the 


Lust, 


fresh 


Has drowned at last in tears and blood 


White mists of early morn, yet do we 


—plunged down 


find 


To the blackest depths of Hell ? Have 


Achievement its own guerdon, and at 


not strong Will 


last 


And high Ambition rotted into Greed 


The rounder song of manhood grows 


And Wrong, for any, as of old, and 


more sweet 


whelmed 


Than the high note of youth. 


The struggling soul in ruin ? Hell lies 


For Age, long \g<t ! 


near 


Nought else divides us from the fresh 


Around us as does Heaven, and in the 


young days 


World, 


Which men call ancient ; seeing that 


Which is our Hades, still the chequered 


we in turn 


souls 


Shall one day be Time's ancients, and 


Compact of good and ill — not all accurst 


inspire 


Nor altogether blest — a few biief years 


The wiser, higher race, which yet shall 


Travel the little journey of their lives. 


sing 


They know not to what end. The 


Because to sing is human, and high 


weary woman 


thought 


Sunk deep in ease and sated with her life, 


Grows rhythmic ere its close. Nought 


Much loved and yet unloving, pines 


else there is 


to-day 


But that weird beat of Time, which 


As Helen; still the poet strives and sings, 


doth disjoin 


And hears Apollo's music, and grows 


To-day from Hellas. 


dumb, 



248 



given: 



1 



And suffers, yet is happy; still the young 
Fond dreamer seeks his high ideal love, 
And finds her name is Death ; still 

doth the fair 
And innocent life, bound naked to the 

rock. 
Redeem the race ; still the gay tempter 

goes 
And leaves his victim, stone ; still 

common pain 
Binds souls with closer links of nobler 

love, 
Than Death itself can sever ; still the 

sight 
Of too great beauty blinds us, and we 

lose 
The sense of earthly splendours, gaining 

Heaven. 

And still the skies are opened as of 

old 
To the entranced gaze, ay, nearer far 
And brighter than of yore ; and Might 

is there. 
And Infinite Purity is there, and high 
Eternal Wisdom, and the calm clear face 
Of Duty, and a higher, stronger Love 
And Light in one, and a new, reverend 

Name, 



I Greater than any and combining all ; 
And over all, veiled with a veil of cloud, 
God set far off, too bright for mortal 
eyes. 

And always, always, with each soul 
that comes 

And goes, comes that fair form which 
was my guide, 

Hovering, with golden wings and eyes 
divine, 

Above the bed of birth, the bed of 
death, 

Still breathing heavenly airs of death- 
less love. 

For while a youth is lost in soaring 

thought. 
And while a maid grows sweet and 

beautiful. 
And while a spring-tide coming lights 

the earth, 
And while a child, and while a flower 

is born. 
And while one wrong cries for redress 

and finds 
A soul to answer, still the world is 

young ! 



G W E N . 



PROLOGUE. 

Not of old time alone 

Was Life a scene of hopes and fears, 

High joys and bitter tears ; 

Nor Chance nor Fate are done ; 

Nor from our fuller Day 

The fabled gods have wholly fled away ; 



The World and Man to-day are young 
As when blind Homer sung. 



What if the old forms change ? 
They were but forms, the things remain. 
What if our fear and pain 
Show not like monsters strange ? 



SCENE 



GIVEN. 



249 



The self-same path of life 

We tread, who fare beneath the sun 

to-day ; 
We sink or triumph in the strife 
No otherwise than they. 

Compact of good and ill 
Their life of old was, as is ours ; 
The same mysterious Will 
Controlled their finite powers 
And to strange thoughts of Fate 
And workings of a fixed Necessity 
Which rules both small and great. 
As they bowed, so bow we. 

x^nd Love, the Lord and King — 

Not Eros, but diviner far — 

Still upon heavenward wing 

Mounts like a shining star. 

Than clouds and thunders stronger, 

He brings a clear ray from the invisible 

Sun ; 
And when he shines no longer, 
Life's play is done. 



ACT I. 

SCENE L— Henry. 

The sweet cold air of these untrodden 
hills 

Breathes gently. From the bustle of 
the inn 

I turn refreshed to this free mountain- 
side. 

And listen to the innumerable sound 

Of the loud brook beneath, which roars 
and spumes 

Brown- white against the granite. These 
thick firs 

Shed balm upon the evening air ; there 
comes 1 



No footstep but the rabbit's or the 

shrew's 
Upon this grassy path, which winds 

and winds 
Around the hill-side, under promon- 
tories 
Of gold and purple, to the grey old 

church. 
Where, chancing yesterday at eve, I 

caught 
The sound of hymns, richer and fuller 

far 
Than those of yore ; and, hidden within 

the porch. 
Heard the prayers rising in a tongue 

unknown, 
But musical as Greek ; and not un- 
moved 
Watched the loud preacher, firing with 

his theme. 
Grow rhythmic, and the answering 

moans which showed 
He touched the peasant heart. 

Ah, it was long 
Since I had heard men pray. I have 

seen the cloud 
Of incense rolling to the fretted roofs 
Of dim cathedrals in the fair old lands 
Where Faith weds not with Reason ; I 

have heard 
The Benediction service, pure and 

sweet, 
Lit by young voices ; I have watched 

with fear 
In college aisles the polished, delicate 

priest 
Poise his smooth periods on the razor 

edge 
Of a too fine-drawn logic ; I have stood 
And listened all unmoved, or all 

ashamed 
That I was moved a little, by the 
trick 



2,0 



GIVEN. 



And artifice of speech which, though 1 

knew it, 
Could cheat the heart a moment, while 

the preacher 
Enchained his ignorant thousands. 

None of these 
Moved me as that unknown tongue 

yesterday. 
I thought my faith reviving. Tush ! 

what folly ! 
That died long years ago from the roots, 

dried up 
By the strong glare of knowledge, nor 

could aught 
Of all the miracles the Churchmen 

feign 
E'er water it to life. That died long 

since. 
Struck dead by German learning and 

the strong 
And arrogant Priests of Science. Yet 

God knows — 
If God there be —I would give my life 

to know 
The strong Belief of old, when little 

hands 
Were folded morn and eve, and little 

eyes 
Scarce open from the night, or half 

weighed down 
By the long hours of play, were raised 

to see 
Heaven in a mother's gaze. 

I would my soul 
Might cast from it the dead unlovely 

load 
Of dead men's speculations, rottennesses 
Born of unloving lives which took the 

cell 
And cloister for the home, the mid- 
night lamp 
For the glow of the hearth, and palsied 

limbs of doubt 



For the strong sire's firm stride. I am | 

young still ; ? 

Yet often, when the flash of racing 

oars, 
The shouts, the rushing feet, the joyous 

din, 
Floated along the avenues at eve 
To my still college chamber ; there 

would come 
A weariness, a surfeit, a distaste 
Of all the painted show which men call 

life, 
Of all the sensual flush which men call 

love. 
Of all the hollow, vain logomachies 
Men take for learning, and I seemed to 

live 
In premature decay, and to have touched 
The fruit of life with eager lips and 

found it 
Crumble away in dust. And yet I know 
How little 'tis my few laborious years 
Have given me of learning that might 

take 
The utmost space of our allotted years. 
Yet leave us still unquenched. And 

yet what bar — 
But seven little years— comes there that 

parts 
Me and my boyhood ? Seven fleeting 

years ! 
And still I am a youth in frame, in 

mind, 
In innocence of harm in thought or 

deed. 
In scorn of wrong, and of the sensual 

stye 
Wherein the boor lies bound. Only 

some power 
There is which holds me fast and binds 

my will ; 
Only some dim and paralyzing force 
Freezes the springs of action, till I lie 



GWE.V. 



2U 



IMooied in some tidelesi and forgoUen 


Which issues forth so soft from the red 


creek, 


lips 


A ship which lies and rots ; while on 


Arched like the bow of Cupid, the soft 


high seas 


neck 


The salt winds blow, the white crests 


Like a while pillar ; these were charms 


break, the sail, 


enow 


Filled with tlie stress of hope and youth 


I warrant, which might draw as by a 


and act, 


spell 


Speeds to the unseen harbour. 


The rustic youth around. Yes, she was 


What shall cure 


fair 


This sickness of the soul? I would 


And sweet to see, and better, from her 


that I 


eyes 


Were like that peasant lad whom yester- 


A pure young soul looked forth, which 


eve 


was well housed 


I saw— a stalwart boy, on whose red 


Within so pure a body. — " Gwen " he 


cheek 


called her — 


The down of manhood showed ; whose 


'Tis a fair name — when by the vicarage 


strong arm wound 


gate 


Around his sweetheart's waist, as free 


Her father stayed a moment courteously 


from shame. 


To greet the stranger, and her shy 


While down the village street they 


glance turned 


loitered slow 


And met my tell-tale eyes. Surely a 


As 'twere the end of life to grow and 


man 


breed 


Who had seen the hollowness of things 


And die, as do his herds. Yet here again 


might here 


I hesitate to act, because I know 


Dwell not unhappy — purple hills 


What love is in its cause, what in its 


around, 


end. 


And great tranquillity — a wife's sweet 


And by what secret, miry paths full oft 


smile 


The winged god steals, when all his 


Beside him ; little hands to draw him 


violet plumes 


back 


Are smirched with foulness, and his 


To the kindly earth ; and all the 


fair eyes droop, 


healthy load 


Cloyed with the grosser sweets of lower 


Of daily liturgies which make a heaven 


earth. 


Of earth, and doubt a madness. 


And the keen arrow flies not through 


Tush ! what folly 


the skies. 


Is this ? Plave I not passed these things 


But drops a blunted shaft. 


and spurned 


I would I knew 


The weakness from me— I, who have 


Less, or grew wiser, knowing. Golden 


given years 


hair, 


Of youth to learning, and am tired a 


Sweet eyes, the lithe young form, the 


while 


girlish voice 


Of my mistress, nothing more ? 



252 



GWEM. 



And yet, what hope 
V/as it that brought me hither, this 

last night 
I spend among the mountains? Was 

it to watch 
The sunset glories smite the golden sea, 
Or hear the fairy rivulet fall in foam 
Among the pines ? Or was it that I 

thought 
Perchance a slender form might pass 

this way, 
Crowned with the crown of youth, and 

a sweet voice 
Answer my eager greeting ? Oh, what 

fools 
And hypocrites are we, when a strong 

Power 
Within us, unsuspected, binds us fast 
And guides our footsteps ! It was not 

the face 
Of outward nature, but the secret 

spring 
Which sets our Being to a hidden 

end, 
And bears the name of Love. 

A gleam of blue, 
A hat white-plumed — there is no other 

form 
As graceful ; it is she ! I may not 

love, 
Who cannot wed. I shall not see her 

more. 
I am young still ; I will but look a 

moment 
In those young eyes, and hear that 

sweet young voice 
Refine our common English, and to- 
morrow 
She will forget the stranger who was 

kind. 
And I the mountain-nymph who was 
so fair. 



SCENE II. 

I know not why my books, 

The learning that I loved, the charm 

of art 
Should for a young girl's looks 
Fade from my thought and vanish and 

depart. 
It was but yesterday 
I loved to pore upon the classic page 
From morn to eve, nor could the 

damsels gay, 
Who from the parching town 
Flock to these pure cool heights, move 

me at all. 
'Twas rest enough to roam 
On the hill-side contented all day long, 
And watch the shadows come 
O'er moor and hill and purple wastes 

of sea ; 
To see the evening fall 
On breathless hill and dale, till sud- 
denly 
The pale moon rose ; then wander 

homeward slow 
To my loved books with cheek with 

health aglow. 
And now nor hill, nor dale nor sea. 
Nor the old task sufficeth me. 

For two days since, ere night could 

fall, 
There came a young girl eighteen 

summers old — 
A simple girl, half peasant, lithe and 

tall, 
With deep-blue eyes and hair of gold ; 
And straightway my philosophy, 
My learning, all forsaking me. 
Left me a love-sick boy — no more — 
Me who have drunk so deep of wiser 

lore ! 



6CENE TI 



GWEN. 



253 



Too wise, I thought, to rest content 
With any childish blandishment ; 
Too wise ! ah fool ! for looking in 

such eyes, 
'Twere folly to be wise. 

For as she tripped round the hill 

To visit some cottage lowly, 

With her basket of food on her arm, 

She showed like Artemis holy ; 

And I doffed to her, and she knew 

The stranger of yesternight, 

And her soft eyes showed more blue 

As the rose on her cheek grew bright ; 

And, some power impelling me, I — 

I who was always counted so shy — 

I walked by her side a little, though I 

know 
That my tongue was tied and my brain 

was slow ; 
But however it was, yet her eyes were 

blue, 
And her roses all aglow. 

And I walked by her side till she 

came 
To the cottage door, where wc parted. 
And a mingling of pride and of shame 
Rose and left me awhile half-hearted. 
I to stoop to a simple giil, 
The child of a peasant sire ! 
Though the gown of the clergyman hides 

many faults. 
Surely 'twas mine to aspire. 
What would they say — my friends, 
The pale students, polished and proud, 
If I, the first of them, stooped to take 
A wife from the vulgar crowd ? 
Or she, my dear mother, whose pride 
Lies hid so deep in the depths of her 

heart, 
There is scarcely one of us knows it is 

there ? 



Or my father, the Earl, to whom life 

is no more 
Than a long procession of hound and 

horse. 
To whom hardly dishonour itself seems 

Morse 
Than to wed out of one's degree ? 

And I wandered out over the hill 

For an hour of doubt or more. 

And then, so it happened, my feet drew 

near 
To that humble cottage door ; 
And I saw her come forth with a child 

on her arm. 
Pale-faced and hollow-eyed. 
And she seemed a pagan goddess no 

more. 
But a fair Madonna, with all the charm 
Of San Sisto or of the Chair. 

And then, as over the hill 

We walked back again, though her 

voice was still, 
Surely was never a man so full 
Of chattering talk as I. 
But she was not angry at all, not she ; 
But from that calm vantage of wise 

eighteen 
And v/ith only a modest word or so, 
And a sweet voice, and musical accent 

low, 
She would bend her delicate ear to 

me, 
And listen, as grave and as calm as a 

queen. 
To the talk which meant little enough, 

maybe, 
But was understood, I ween. 

But however it was, I know 
When we came to the gate, and her 
little hand 



254 



GIVEN. 



Slid shyly out, as she wished me good- 
bye, 

That as I turned to go 

My feet seemed winged on the slope 
of the hills, 

And I hardly knew that the cold half- 
sleet 

Which blots the clouded mountain and 
chills 

The unsheltered wayfarer, wrapping 
me round, 

Had drenched me. For up the silent 
street 

Of the darkling village, jubilant sound 

Compassed me ; sunlight beamed on 
me still ; 

And even to my high inn-chamber I 
seemed 

To be treading that breezy hill. 



What is the charm that wakes 

The bud, the flower, the fruit, from the 

cold ground ? 
What is the power that makes 
With song the groves, with song the 

fields, resound ? 
One spell there is, so strong to move ; 
Some call it Spring, and others Love. 

I thought my heart lay dead — 

Sad heart, long buried deep in dusty 

lore ! — 
But now, the winter fled. 
It beats with quicker beat than e'er 

before. — 
A simple girl, yet can she move 
Spring in my soul, the Spring of Love ! 

Strange fable that they taught 

Of old, of souls divided as in twain, 



Each by the other sought 
Until the sundered reunite again, 
And then the severed members move, 
Knit by the magic spell of Love ! 

Ah, let us be at one. 

Dear soul, if one we be, and are of kin 

Before the world begun ; 

Sure 'tis that I was made thy soul to 

win. 
Ah, child, if we might upward move, 
Borne on the golden wings of Love ! 



SCENE in. 

What is it the village leech 

Tells me of fever and chill, 

And bids me keep warm ? Well, per- 
haps it were wise ; 

For I fail to sleep, and ray limbs are 
as lead, 

And a throb of painfulness splits my 
head, 

And they warned me of this, I re- 
member, again and again. 

But surely I know that, came wind or 
rain. 

If only my weary limbs could reach 

To that little gate on the breezy hill 

And I saw the desire of my eyes, 

I should take little thought of myself, 
not I, 

Not even were I doomed to die. 



SCENE IV. 

What is this ? And where am I ? 

This is not the high inn-chamber, I 
know. 

This white little room where the sunset- 
glow 

On the white bed -curtains, as I lie, 



feCIEXE IV 



GIVEN. 



255 



Makes orange shadows which fade and 

fleet ; 
Nor are ihese my first nurse's reluctant 

feet 
Which steal so lightly and daintily 

round, 
As if grudging the faintest ghost of a 

sound ; 
Nor was the soft voice T heard 
Last night, when the curtain was 

silently stirred, 
The village doctor's at all : 
I have heard it before, but when, I 

cannot recall. 

For there comes a sense on my brain 
Of time that is gone but has left no 

trace 
But days which passed and left nothing 

behind, 
Yet upon the secret depths of the mind 
Are graven that nought may erase. 
As the patient metal retains the sound 
Of the living voice that is dead, 
Even so doth my being retain 
A long procession of days and nights, 
Weary and suffering and heavily sped ; 
And then for a moment the cool air 

strikes, 
As some one carries me tenderly down, 
And slowly the wheels of my litter 

climb. 
Leaving the streets of the little town. 
Up the hill through the scented pines. 

And then all is blank for a time ; 

A long time, surely, when nothing came 

But wandering dreams and a whispered 

name. 
Repeated often and like a charm. 
To keep off fancied phantoms of harm. 
" Gwen," was it ? Somewhere I seem 

to recall, 



Far away in some world of forgotten 

things, 
A fair young face which I loved to see ; 
And one night in this room it smiled on 

me. 
And the ghastly shapes spread their 

horrible wings 
And left me at rest for a while. 



Ah, no ! I did not dream it at all. 

For now for a week she comes every 
day, 

A young nurse, virginal, white, and 
tall. 

And her father, the vicar, whose kind 
eyes beam 

With a genial kindness he cannot 
speak ; 

For if ever he ventures a word, it is gall 

To one who is peevish and weak. 

And his words struggle out like stones 
in a stream. 

Jerked together, and jostled, and bat- 
tered away. 

Till I long that he had done. 

But she, my Artemis pure and fair, 
My Madonna, who stood at the cottage 

gate- 
She is perfect, I hold, from the crown 

of her hair 
To the dainty sole of her delicate foot ; 
And her hand and her voice are as soft 

as silk. 
And she comes hour by hour with a 

tender care, 
With my draught or my food, or with 

rich cool milk. 
Ah ! if onl) What, am I then 

worse than the brute. 



256 



GIVEN. 



ACT I, 



That I stoop to thoughts that I loathe 

and hate — 
I, a great peer's only son ? 



For. I see on the walls of my simple 

room, 
Which I know was her own, the work 

of her hand, 
At night, in the firelight's flickering 

gloom, 
This text emblazoned in letters of 

gold— 
" For whom Christ died." Ah, if 

indeed 
His words were the words of a real 

doom, 
And his faith the faith of a living 

creed ! 
But now souls and beliefs are bargained 

and sold, 
There is no behef by which men may 

stand. 
There is neither creed nor God ! 



But whether there be or be not indeed, 
It shall not change me or move my 

mind. 
Shall I who hate to see weak things 

bleed. 
From the hare which shrieks, to the 

trout on the hook. 
Play false with the simple heart of a 

maid. 
Till her poor soul pines with a terrible 

need ? 
I dare not do it ; I am afraid 
To see the young soul, M'ith a hopeless 

look. 
Go out for the truth which it cannot 

find 
By dark ways, of truth untrod. 



She shall keep unassailed her young 

innocent heart. 
For aught to be whispered by me or 

done ; 
She shall hold her faith ; but 'tis best 

we part, 
For hearts break daily and white lives 

fade. 
And 'twere better indeed I had never 

been born, 
Than to bring a young life to sorrow 

and woe. 
And leave a pure saint to the cold 

world's scorn. 
Shrinking back from the wreck which 

myself had made. 
No, of all the wrong-doing beneath the 

sun, 
Not this one be mine, oh God ! 



White room ! white curtain ! little bed 
That once was hers, whereon she lay 
So warm and still, her sunny head 
Safe pillowed till the growing day ! 

I bless you and I love you all. 

I feel so young who once seemed old. 

I see a lithe girl-figure, tall. 

With grave blue eyes and hair of gold. 

Stand by the half-closed door when he, 
The village doctor, yesternight. 
Came stealthily and looked on me, 
With noiseless step and shaded light ; 

And I, who deep in lethargy 
Seemed buried, to a careless eye, 
Lay all unmoved, till suddenly 
I caught the echo of a sigh, 



GVVEN. 



257 



And, looking up, beheld my dear, 
The first love of my weary heart. 
Stand pitiful, and marked the tear 
In the soft eye unbidden start. 

Vet no prognostics dire they were 
He launched against me ; only these : 
Torpor and weakness, needing care 
And watchfulness for remedies ; 

And, seeing that I saw and heard, 
Turned to me with a cheerful face, 
And spoke some random hopeful word, 
And nodded smiling to the place, 

Where stood the stair. But I, I knew 
A sudden rush of hope and strength. 
And cared not when, if but at length, 
My new-born thought should turn out 
true. 



SCENE V. 

Oh, joy ! I grow stronger day by day ; 
And day by day in the sweet summer 

weather 
I wander over the hills, and away 
High up 'mid the purple masses of 

heather, 
Till mounting aloft with no one by, 
All in the bountiful summer weather, 
I drink in new life from every pore, 
Throbbing and bourgeoning more and 

more 
In every limb and with ev^ery breath, 
As, laid on the heather, I watch the 

sky 
And the purple shadows on sea and 

hill, 
And hear no sound but the bee's deep 

hum, 



And watch the shy mountain -sheep 

timidly come. 
And the kestrel circling, aloft on the 

rocky brow. 
Fulfilling the marvellous mission of 

Death and of Pain. 
Death ! ah, but that is far from me 

now, 
Vanished with Pain and its legions of 

111. 
I can walk with my limbs, I can leap, 

I can run ; 
I rejoice in my strength : the day of 

weakness is done. 
I live, I grow strong ; I am one with 

the World and with Life again. 

And sometimes, rare blessing, there 

comes with me 
A fair young Mountain -nymph over the 

hill. 
Fearless and free from a thought of 

ill. 
For her mother, who came of gentler 

blood, 
Who was always delicate, kind, and 

good — 
Tier mother died long ago, and she 
Has lived from her childhood fearless 

and free. 
I think no touch of passion as yet 
Has moved her. Only pity made wet 
Her eyes on that night which awoke 

my love. 
I am only a friend more mature and 

wise 
Than any she knows, and a shamed 

surprise 
Would wake in the sapphire depths of 

her eyes, 
If she saw what blind and passionate 

longings move 
Within the hidden thoughts of a man. 
s 



258 



GWEN. 



Ah, well ! but nature is twofold, and sure 

It were not wise to ban 

The instincts which are neither gross 

nor pure. 
Let him suppress them who can. 
It is only in thought I invade her 

virginal peace, 
For I know that this sweet rehearsal 

of love must cease. 
For I am not my own ; but my wife 

to be, 
Stately and beautiful, waits for me 
With that which suffices to build up 

our shattered wealth. 
Ay, but what if love, awaking and 

coming by stealth, 
Should bind me in chains on this wild 

Welsh hill ? 
Or hurry me downward, downward, to 

fathomless ill ? 
Tush ! how should I be a devil if there 

be not a God ? 
I am only a young man in whom the 

young blood 
Pulses quickly, and have I no gratitude 
For the life which she saved, the life 

which is grown so sweet, 
As we roam o'er these breeze-swept 

uplands with rapid young feet ? 
Oh, joy ! I am one with the life of the 

hills, and the skies, and of man ! 



SCENE VI. 

It is done ! I have told her I love her, 
Yester-eve as we walked together. 
Some power grown tyrannous holding 

me fast, 
Blotting alike the Future and Past ; 
And for answer she gave but a sigh 

and a start, 



And a blush as bright as the purple 

heather, 
And a little flutter of bosom and heart, 
And a glow like the hues of the sunset 

above her. 
Oh, fair ash -grove where I told my 

love ! 
Fair ash-grove dear to Cymric verse 
Since their bard who sang thee when 

Chaucer was young ! 
Fairest of groves that were ever sung ! 
Oh, fairest sunset of all that have shone 
Since man first woke in Paradise 

garden. 
Before the temptation, the ruin, the 

curse. 
Before the strange story was over and 

done, 
And man an outcast hopeless of pardon ! 
As we sat on the mossy bank, she and I, 
And no creature was near with intrusive 

eye, 
To mark our innocent joy ! 
Sweet day when love awakens and 

stands. 
With his free limbs bare and his out- 
stretched hands. 
Before two young shame- fast natures 

which yearn 
With innocent yearning : clear fires 

that burn 
Free from all baser alloy. 
It is done ; it is over ; and never Eve, 
The mother of maidens who love and 

grieve, 
Looked fairer than did Gwen, 
This peasant maiden, when first she 

heard 
The one ineffable, passionate word 
Which stirs for ever the hearts of 

maidens and of men . 



SCENE VI. 



GWEN. 



259 



The bud on the bough, 

The song of the bird, 

The blue river-reaches 

By soft breezes stirred ; 

Oh, soul, and hast thou found again 

thy treasure ? 
Oh, world, and art thou once more filled 

v/ith pleasure ? 
Oh, world, hast thou passed 
Thy sad winter again ? 
Oh, soul, hast thou cast 
Thy dull vesture of pain ? 
Oh ! winter, sad wert thou and full of 

sorrow ; ' 

Oh soul, oh world, the summer comes ; 

to-morrow ! 

Oh, soul ! 'tis love quickens 

Time's languorous feet ; 

Oh, world ! 'tis Spring wakens 

Thy fair blossoms sweet ; 

P'air world, fair soul, that lie so close 

together, 
Each with sad wintry days and fair 

Spring weather ! 



As on the clear hill-sides we walked 

together, 
A gleam of purple passed over the sea, 
And, glad with the joy of the summer 

weather, 
My love turned quickly and looked on 

me. 
Ah, the glad summer weather, the fair 

summer weather ! 
Ah, the purple shadow on hill and sea ! 

And I looked in her eyes as we walked 

together. 
And knew the shy secret she fain would 

hide, 



And we went hand in hand through the 

blossoming heather, 
She who now was my sweetheart, and 

I by her side ; 
For the shade was the shadow of Love's 

wing-feather, 
Whichbares, as he rises, the secrets we 

hide. 

Now, come cloud or sunshine, come 

joy or weeping. 
It can be no longer as 'twas before. 
Just a shadow of change o'er the soul 

comes creeping. 
And farewell to the joyance and freedom 

of yore ; 
For it crosses Love's face, where he 

lies a-sleeping. 
And he soars awaking, nor slumbers 

more. 



I have found her ! 
At last, [after long wanderings, dull 
delays, 
I have found her ; 
And all my life is tuned to joy and 
praise. 
I have found her ! 

A myriad-myriad times 
In man's long history this thing has 
been ; 

All ages, climes. 
This daily, hourly miracle have seen 

A myriad-myriad times ; 

Yet is it new to-day. 
I have l^found her, and a new Spring 
glads my eyes. 
World, fair and gay 



26o 



GIVEN. 



As when Eve woke in dewy Paradise, 
Fade not away ! 

Fade not, oh light, 
Lighting the eyes of yei another pair, 

But let my sight 
Find her as I have found her, pure and 
fair! 

Shine, mystic light ! 



Yes, it is sweet to be 

Awaited, and to know another heart 

Beats faster for our coming, and to see 

The blush unbidden start 

To the fair cheek, and mark young 

Love's alarms 
Perturb and make more fair the girlish 

charms. 

I am once more 

A young man with the passions of my 

kind ; 
I am no pedant, glorying as before 
In barren realms of mind. 
The springtide that awakens land and 

sea, 
The Spring of Youth and Love, 

awakens me. 

It calls, and all my life 

Answers from its dim depths, "I come, 

I hear." 
It breaks, it bursts, in sudden hope and 

strife. 
And precious chills of fear. 
It comes with tremulous, furtive thrills 

which can 
Strip from me all the Past, and leave 

me, man. 



SCENE VIL— GwEN. 



Dear 



hills, dear vales, so calm and 

bright 
In dewy dawn, in silvery night ! 
Dear woods and uplands cool and wild, 
Where yesterday I walked a child, 
I love you, but I roam no more 
With all the careless joy of yore. 
My girlish days are past and done ; 
I know my womanhood begun. 

What was it one so wise could see 

In an untutored child like me ? 

What was it ? Nay, 'twere sin to 

prove 
By earthy tests the ways of love. 
Whate'er it was, Love's perfect way 
Is without doubting to obey. 

I do obey. I lay my soul 

Low at Love's feet for his control. 

Farewell, oh paths half hidden in 

flowers, 
Trodden by young feet in childish 

hours ; 
White bed, white room, and girlish 

home ! 
The hour of Love and Life is come I 

I shall not watch as yesterday 
The orange sunset fade to gray. 
Nor roam unfettered as the bee, 
A maiden heart and fancy free. 
I am bound by such a precious chain 
I may not wander forth again. 

Oh, bond divine ! oh, sweet, sweet 

chain ! 
Oh, mingling of ecstatic pain ! 
I am a simple girl no more. 
I would not have it as before, 



SCENE VII. 



GWEN. 



261 



One day of love, one brief, sweet day, 
And all my past is swept away. 



Oh, vermeil rose and sweet, 

Rose with the golden heart of liidden 

fire, 
Bear thou my yearning soul to him I 

love, 
Bear thou my longing and desire. 

Glide safe, oh sweet, sweet rose, 

By fairy-fall and cliff and mimic strand. 

To where he muses by the sleeping 

stream. 
Then eddy to his hand. 

Drown not, oh vermeil rose, 

But from thy dewy petals let a tear 

Fall soft for joy when thou shalt know 

the touch 
And presence of my dear. 

Tell him, oh sweet, sweet rose, 

That I grow fixed no more, nor flourish 

now 
In the sweet maiden garden-ground of 

old, 
But severed even as thou. 

Say from thy golden heart, 

From virgin folded leaf and odorous 

breath. 
That I am his to wear or cast away, 
His own in life or death. 



Thy shadow, oh tardy night. 
Creeps onward by valley and hill, 
And scarce to my straining sight 
Show the white road-reaches still. 



Oh, night, stay now a little, little space, 

And let me see the light of my beloved's 
face ! 

My love is late, oh night. 

And what has kept him away ? 

For I know that he takes not delight 

In the garish joys of day. 

Haste, night, dear night, and bring my 

love to me I 
What if his footsteps halt and tarry but 

for thee ? 

Nay, what if his footsteps slide 
By the swaying bridge of pine. 
And whirled seaward by the tide 
Is the loved form I counted mine ! 
Oh, night, dear night that comest yet 

dost not come. 
How shall I wait the hour that brings 

my darling home ? 



Fair star that on the shoulder of yon 

hill 
Peepest, a little eye of tranquil night. 
Come forth. Nor sun nor moon there 

is to kill 
Thy ray with broader light. 
Shine, star of eve that art so bright and 

clear ; 
Shine, little star, and luring my lover 

here ! 

My lover ! oh, fair word for maid to 

hear I 
My lover who was yesterday my friend ! 
Oh, strange we did not know before 

how near 
Our stream of life smoothed to its fated 

end ! 



262 



GIVEN. 



ACT II. 



Shine, star of eve, as Love's self, bright 

and clear ; 
Shine, little star, and bring my lover 

here ! 

He comes ! I hear the echo of his feet. 
He comes ! I fear to stay, I cannot go. 
Oh, Love, that thou art shame-fast, 

bitter-sweet. 
Mixed with all pain, and conversant 

with woe ! 
Shine, star of eve, more bright as night 

draws near ; 
Shine, little star, and bring my lover 

here ! 



What shall I do for my love. 
Who is so tender 
And dear and true. 
Loving and true and tender. 
My strength and my defender- 
What shall I do? 

I will cleave unto my love, 

Who am too lowly 

For him to take. 

With a self-surrender holy 

I will cleave unto him solely ; 

I will give my being wholly 

For his dear sake. 



ACT IL 

SCENE I.— Henry. 

Only a little week 

Of meetings under the star, 

Since the blissful evening I dared to 

speak. 
Sweet evening that seems so far ! 
And already the cruel post brings me 

word 



That my mother the countess, who, far 

away 
At a German bath with her ailing lord, 
Has been dreaming the early autumn 

away, 
Returns to-day, and to-morrow will 

come 
To take the invalid leisurely home. 

All, mother ! I fear that your pride will 

scorn 
That your son should mate with a lowly 

bride, 
Though a vicar's daughter is well 

enough born 
For all but a foolish pride. 
And I know, moreover, your heart is 

set 
On her to whom no word is spoken yet, 
The lofty heiress who comes to restore 
Our house to the splendours of yore. 
Poor mother, your patience was sadly 

tried 
By the studious fancies which kept me 

apart 
From the London which now seems to 

hold your heart ; 
And, alas ! I hardly know how to face 
The blank amaze of your haughty gaze, 
The cold surprise of patrician eyes, 
As you listen to my disgrace. 

Disgrace, did I say ? Ah ! where 

In all the bewildering town 

Is any as Owen is, fair 

Or comely, or high or pure ? 

Or when did a countess's coronet crown 

A head with a brighter glory of hair? 

Or how could titular rank insure 

A mind and a heart so sweet ? 

They shall not shame me to cheat or 

beguile 
My darling, my cpieen, my treasure, 



GIVEN. 



263 



Nor blot from my soul the pure pleasure 

Of tlie brief hours that have been. 

And if indeed I must go for a while, 

It shall not be for long, but a little 
while ; 

And then I will haste back again with 
passionate feet, 

To bask again in her smile. 

I must tell her all to-night, sweet to- 
night, when we meet. 



SCENE II. 

I have seen her once again, 

I have seen her again, my dear. 

And oh, but parting was a bitter pain ! 

And oh, the ready, child-like tear ! 

I did not know, even I, before, 

With how immense and ponderous a 

chain 
Love binds the girlish heart, and holds 

it evermore. 

For I hardly know at all 

How it came to be, but as we two spoke 

Of parting and absence her sweet voice 
broke, 

And she paled and wavered as if to fall ; 

And 'twas only a ready encircling arm, 

And lip to lip in a close embrace. 

That brought back the rose to her 
troubled face, 

And recalled the wandering life from 
its swift alarm. 

Dear young soul that Fate has given 
me to hold, 

And shall I forsake thee, come weal or 
woe ? 

No, I will not betray thy sweet trustful- 
ness ; no, 

Not for millions of gems and gold. 



But before I left her and went 

My way to the inn, while the village 

street 
Echoed loud with the rhythmical wheels 

and feet 
Of my mother's chariot, we vowed 

together 
That, through every change of life's 

fickle weather, 
We would cling to each other and never 

part. 
And so I, the round of festivities done, 
And the pheasants killed and the county 

won, 
Will steal from my gilded trammels, and 

come 
To the Welsh hillside which is now my 

home, 
And the child who has my heart. 



Was ever a girlish heart so fair 

As Gwen's, or free from earth ? 

She is pure and innocent, I swear, 

As an infant at the birth. 

She is full, indeed, of much old-world 
lore, 

From the lessons her mother taught her 
of yore ; 

Mozart's sweet melodies loves to re- 
hearse. 

And many a tome of forgotten verse ; 

And something of modern letters she 
knows, 

And oft in fancy with Elaine goes, 

As she floats down lifeless to Camelot. 

But of wrong and evil she knows no 
jot. 

She dreams no more of the ways of 
men. 

Their deceits, their treacheries, 



264 



GWEN. 



Or of coarse, bold women, — my little 

Gwen, 
With the clear, deep, trusting eyes — 
Than if you shovdd come by some 

Arctic main, 
Where a world of ice shuts humanity 

out ; 
On some simple forgotten colony, 
Which had never heard of the world or 

wealth ; 
Or a convent set on a scarped hill. 
Tush ! but they would corrupt each 

other, no doubt. 
Or some echo of evil would creep in by 

stealth. 
But for Gwen the pure cold stream of 

her will 
Flows along the mountain-side, taking 

no stain, 
Crystal-clear, reflecting its kindred sky. 
Was ever a soul so fair ? 



Forget me not, dear soul I Vet where- 
fore speak 

The words of freedom, wliere the thing 
is not ? 

Forget me not ! And yet how poor 
and weak 

My prayer, who know that nothing is 
forgot ! 

Low voice, or kindling eye, or glowing 
cheek, 

Forget them not ! 

Forget me only if forgetting prove 
Oblivion of low aims and earthy 

thought ; 
Forget the blinder appetites which 

move 



Through secret ways, by lower nature 

taught ; 
Forget them, love ! 

Remember only, with fond memory. 
The exaltation, the awakened soul. 
Swift moments strong to bind my heart 

to thee, 
Strong tides of passionate faith which 

scorn control — 
In these remember me ! 



Dear child so sweet in maidenhood, 
How should I doubt, regarding thee, 
A secret spring of hidden Good, 
Which rules all things and bids them 
be? 

Dear soul, so guileless and so pure, 
So innocent and free from stain, 
As 'twere untempted Eve again, 
I lean upon thee and grow sure. 

I love no more the barren quest. 
The doubt I cherished I despise ; 
I am a little while at rest, 
Seeing the Godhead in thine eyes. 

Can good be, yet no Giver ? Can 
The stream flow on, yet own no 

source ? 
From what deep well of hidden Force 
Flows the diviner stream in man ? 

I know noto Some there is, 'tis clear, 
A mystery of mysteries. 
Thy youth has gazed upon it, dear, 
And bears its image in thine eyes. 

Vcs, God there is. Too far to know. 
It may l^e, yet directing all. 



SCENE III. 



GIVEN. 



265 



It is enough ; we spring, we grow, 
We ripen, we decay, we fall. 

To a great Will. No empty show 
Of aimless and unmeaning ends 
Our life is, but the overflow 
Of a great Spring which always tends 

To a great Deep. The silver thread 
Between the Fountain and the Sea 
We are for ever, quick or dead. 
And Source and Ending both are He. 

It is enough — no more I know ; 
But maybe from thy faithful eyes, 
Thy trust that knows no chill, thy glow 
Of meek and daily sacrifice, 

I may relearn the legend fair 
I whispered at my mother's knee. 
And seeing Godhead everywhere, 
Confess, " And this man too was He." 



SCENE III.— GWEX. 

Oh, happy days so lately done. 

And yet removed so far away 

Before our passion-tide begun 

And life's young May ! 

Shy early days of sun and showers, 

When all the paths were hidden in 

flowers 
Tender and sweet, 
And on the mountain-side the year, 
With girlish change of smile and tear, 
Tripped with light feet ; 
And by the melting snows the violet 

came. 
And on the wolds the crocus like a 

saffron flame I 



Daily some song of lonely bird, 
By tufted field or tasselled grove, 
From the clear dawn to solemn eve 

was heard, 
But few of love. 
Nay, rather virginal flutings pure and 

clear. 
Passionless preludes, ah, how dear ! 
Nor yet upon the nest. 
The bright -eyed fearless mother sate, 
Nor yet high in mid-heaven her soaring 

mate 
Thrilled his full breast, 
Nor yet within the white domain of 

song 
Love burst with eyes aglow the maiden 

choir among. 

But when the fuller summer shone, 
Soon as the perfumed rose had come, 
Lo, all the reign of song was done. 
The birds all dumb ; 
And for the choir which did before 

rejoice. 
Low, tuneless accents of an anxious 

voice 
Weighed down with care, 
And dim forebodings choking the high 

note 
Which once resounded from the joyous 

throat 
So full and fair. 
I would not lose the love which is so 

dear. 
But 'tis oh the parted days of the im- 
perfect year ! 



Oh, soft dove gently cooing 
To thy mate upon her nest. 
And hast thou known undoing 
And deep imrest ? 



L 



266 



GWEN. 



ACT 11., SCENE III. 



liath any pain of wooing 


Oh, mother, who art dead 


Pierced thy soft breast ? 


So long beneath the grass, 




Lift up once more, lift thy beloved 


Oh, pale flower ever turning 


head 


To thy great lord the Sun, 


When we two pass. 


And dost thou know a yearning 


And tell me — tell me if this passionate 


Which is never done, 


pain, 


For cloudless days returning 


This longing, this ineffable desire 


And June begun ? 


For one I know so lately, be the gain 




To which young maids aspire. 


Ah, heart ! there is no pleasure 


Is this to love, to kiss my chain and 


As thine, nor grief. 


feel 


Time Future holds the treasure ; 


A dominant will to which 'tis joy to 


Time Past, the thief. 


kneel ? 


What power brings this one, measure, 




Or that, relief? 


Oh, mother, I am a maid ; 




I am young, I know not men. 




My great joy makes me shrink and be 




afraid. 




It is not now as then 


Ah ! 'tis not very long 


When first we walked together on the 
hill. 


Since I was light and free, 


And of all the burden of pain and 


I take no longer, thought for any soul 


wrong 


Of those I loved before and cherish 


No echo readied to me ; 


still • 


But day by day, upon this breeze-swept 
hill. 


I care not for the poor, the blind, the 
lame ; 


Far from the too great load of human 


I care not for the organ's solemn roll. 


ill, 


Or sabbath hymns and prayers, who 
am burnt as of a flame. 


I lived within the sober walls of home, 


Safe-set, nor heard a sound of outward 




evil come. 




It is not that I know. 


Nay, love ! how can I doubt thee 


By word or any deed, 


Who art so dear, 


What depths of misery lie below, 


Though I pine away without thee 


What hearts that bleed ; 


In the fading year ? 


But, since I have felt the music of my 


The ash flings down its leaf, the 


soul 


heather 


Touched by another's mastering hand, 


Is bloomless in the autumn weather ; 


I seem to hear unfathomed oceans roll. 


The mountain paths are wet with rime. 


As when a child I saw the Atlantic 


Where we together eve by eve 


lash the strand. 


Would wander in the joyous time, 



ACT III., SCENE I. 



GIVEN. 



267 



P'air hours when thy returning strength 
Came with the days' increasing length. 
I pace alone the clear familiar road 
Where first we met. I walk alone ; 
I have no aim nor purpose, none — 
Only to think of those soft days and 
still believe. 

Last evening, on a distant hill, 

A wreath of cloud-mist dealing sleet 

Compassed my homeward steps, as still 

I toiled with weary feet. 

Oh, what if the snow, like a winding- 
sheet, 

Had stayed the steps of my life and my 
troubled will. 

And closed on me for ever, concluding 
there 

My little hopes and joys, 'and maybe 
my despair ! 

Nay, I will not doubt him nor be 

afraid ; 
He is all that is good, I know it, tender 

and true. 
But I fear he is higher in rank than he 

said ; 
For one day, I remember it well, as he 

lay 
Veiy weak on his bed, a letter came 
Coronet-blazoned, and half in shame 
I lifted my eyes, and he saw I knew. 
And his face grew troubled and never 

more 
Was his gaze as frank as it was before. 
Tender it was, indeed, and ardent and 

true, 
But not as frank as before. 

But I count the days till he comes 

again ; 
I long for him with a dull, deep pain. 



I will do whatever thing my love 

commands ; 
I will go or stay ; I am taken as a bird 

in his hands. 
Oh, love, my love ! tarry not long ; 
I am not happy nor strong. 



Delay not, love ; the sun has lost his 

fire. 
Stay not ; the cold earth loses warmth 

and light. 
Summer is dead, and Winter comes to 

blight 
The waiting world's desire. 

Come back, and coming bring back 

Spring with thee, 
Spring for my heart though all the 

world lie dead ; 
My life will burst in blossom at thy 

tread — 
Oh, love, come back to me ! 



ACT III. 

SCENE I.— Henry. 

Once more upon these dear familiar 

hills 
I tread ; 'tis autumn now, 'twas summer 

then. 
The valley paths are deep in mire ; the 

leaf 
Falls sadly from the bough ; the village 

inn, 
So noisy then, when four months since 

Hay 
'Twixt life and death, is silent ; a gray 

mist 
Hangs o'er the breathless lowland. All 

the hills 



i 



268 



GVVEN. 



Are clouded, on whose summits a thin 

cowl 
Of snowflakes sits at times. Summer 

is dead ; 
A sad autumnal stillness over all 
The dull world broods, and in my heart 

I know 
Summer is dead — sweet summer, ali, 

too brief ! 



For now, alas ! I know 

What folly 'twas that kept nie here 

Three little months ago. 

I have drunk deep since then of cups 

that cheer, 
The sea of eyes, the beat of popular 

hands. 
When to his thought the high-set plat- 
form reels, 
As now the solitary speaker stands 
Poised like a swimmer on high waves, 

who feels 
The world cut off from him and knows 
To fail is ruin. I have known 
Men better since, and felt how neai- 
And yet far off are clown and peer ; 
And known how better than all lore, 
Better than love itself, and more, 
How satisfying and how great, 
It is to aid the ship of state. 
The labouring bark, which reeling goes 
'Mid sunken rocks, and watching foes. 
And best of all I know 
How baseless was my sweet Arcadian 

dream. 
I could not bear — I know it well- 
To live retired from the central stream 
Of life, as if in a hermit's cell. 
I long for the hurry, the passion, the 
glow 



Of full life lived in the eyes of men ; 
I can bear no longer to dream in 

inglorious ease. 
A great name, the voice of the people, 

authority, these 
Are more than my simple Gwen. 

Ay, and I have learnt besides. 

What I scarce suspected before. 

By what poor expedients my father has 

striven 
To keep the wolf from his door — 
Bubble schemes, mine-ventures which 

came to nought, 
And some senseless bet on some 

swindling race. 
And I know not what gambling follies 

beside. 
But I know that our lawyer, with long- 
drawn face, 
Came to me with secret warnings of ill, 
And hints that a prudent marriage 

alone could fill 
The coffers so nearly empty, again. 
Poor father I it was not right, for your 

dreams of gain. 
And your pompous life and wasteful, 

orderless state, 
To diminish a family hoard that was 

never great ; 
But I know that if the blow he hinted 

should come. 
And the Jew and the broker harried 

our ancient home. 
It would kill you and drive my mother 

distraught. 
Nay, I could not bear to see it. My 

path is clear : 
I must see you once more and leave 
you, my love, my dear. 



SCENES ir,, III. 



GVVEN. 



269 



SCENE II. 

I did not know it, I swear ; 

I did not dream that a young girl, fair 

and free, 
Could long care for one grave and 

studious and worn like me. 
I thought our brief passion was dead ; 
I thought I had schooled my heart to 

obey my head ; 
But when I saw her, she showed so 

fair, — 
It was just at the self-same spot where 

we used to meet,— 
That I hastened up the steep path with 

wings to my feet ; 
And she did not see me at first, but 

stood for a while 
Silent and musing and still, with a sweet 

half-smile, 
As if bent on some mingled vision of 

joy and pain, 
And I knew that our love was not 

dead, but slept and awoke again. 



But when at length she turned her 

eyes. 
With a beautiful, pitiful look of sur- 
prise. 
And a questing glance, and a shiver 

and a start, 
Oh, 'twas then that she touched my 

heart ! 
And before a moment passes again we 

stand, 
With eyes on each other bent, and 

hand linked to hand ; 
And with hardly a spoken word, we 

are face to face. 
Strained together again in a close 

embrace : 



And I failed, I failed to tell her what 

should have been told. 
For the heart of a maid is higher than 

rank or gold. 

But to-night I must speak and tell her 

all, 
I must tell her though the sky fall. 



SCENE III. 

It is over, it is done. 

She from the clear frank depths of her 

maidenly pride : 
"Dear, it is sudden indeed, but I 

thought it would come. 
For I doubt if any are happy under the 

sun. 
But you, you shall not imperil the pride 

of your home ; 
I know you a fitting mate for a loftier 

bride. 
I will love you and pray for you always. 

And now good-bye. 
Be good, my dear, to your wife. But I 
Have awoke from my dream in time, 

and will tend 
My poor, who, I fear, have missed a 

friend ; 
And my father is growing old, and will 

want me here. 
Fear not, I shall not be unhappy. 

Farewell, my dear ! " 
And she went with feet as swift as the 

bounding roe. 
And vanished before I knew she was 

minded to go. 
And left me alone with the dying day 

in the fading year. 



270 



GIVEN. 



ACT in., SCENE IV. 



I cannot leave her thus ; I must see her 

again, 
Though I know it is cruel to both and 

renewal of pain. 
But all night long have I lain awake, 
Tossing and fevered for her dear sake. 
As when she nursed me to life in her 

little room ; 
And once, when I dozed a moment, I 

seemed to hear 
Her sweet voice calling aloud in accents 

of fear, 
Calling my name in a voice which sank 

to a moan ; 
x\nd, though I know it was dreaming 

fancy alone, 
I cannot leave her thus. I am harassed 

with fears ; 
I must see her again ; I must write. 

And lo ! through the gloom 
The slow dawn of autumn breaks in 

mist and in tears. 



Dear, I must see you again. 
Bring with you the last sweet rose 
Which lingers still in your garden- 
ground, 
The last red summer rose. 

Do you mind how you sent me a rose 
Along the swift streamlet's flow, 
A sweet -and a blushing rose ? 
It is faded — 'twas long ago. 

Come, dear. A dream visited me 
In the weary vigilant night ; 
I heard your voice calling lo me 
In grievous pain and affright. 

I must see you. The swift wheels stay 
At the spot we have known of yore ; 



Be there, ere they bear me away 
From my love for evermore. 



SCENE IV.— GwEN. 

The light has gone out of my life, 
Yet I will not repine. 
Nay, 'tis well to have passed betimes 
through the struggle and strife. 

Shall I grieve that he comes not again, 
That my love is not mine? 
Ah, folly ! the whole creation travails 
in pain. 

I will live my own life once more ; 
I will succour the weak ; 
I will be but a little more grave than I 
was before. 

I will strive to repay the deep love 
My fond father fails to speak ; 
Though the path may be lonely and 
drear, yet the heavens are above. 

Ah ! my love who no longer art mine, 
Yet my love till I die, 
I will strive to be patient and strong, 
but I wither and pine. 



A letter from my love, 
In the well-remembered hand. 
Once again, yet we have parted 
'Tis hard to understand. 

A letter from my love ! 
Dear letter, and what says he ? 
" I am going away for ever. 
Come once more, dear to me, 



ACT IV., SCENE I. 



GIVEN. 



271 



" And with you bring a rose." — 
My love, I will be there ; 
I will bring you a red, red rosebud 
Upon your heart to wear. 

But you must not crush it, dear, 
Or bind it to you too fast, 
Or the poor flower's scent, I fear, 
Will bring back to you the Past. 

Wear your rose lightly, dear, 

For ornament or pleasure ; 

But the virgin rose of a maiden's heart 

Keep safe as a precious treasure. 



ACT IV. 

SCENE I.— Henry. 

How weak are we and blind ! 

How ignorant of fate ! 

P'or I thought I was steadfast and iirm, 

and knew my mind, 
Till I saw her at the gate ; 
And next day, as soon as the train rolled 

on and I sat alone, 
I wished that I had not written to give 

her pain. 
And I prayed that she might not come, 

nor might I see her again. 

But when the swift wheels slackened 

and grew still 
At the little wayside station beyond the 

hill, 
There alone by the platform stood my 

treasure, my dear, 
Very pale, with a rose in her hand ; full 

of maidenly fear. 
And I sprang out to her, and we 

whispered ardent and low, 



With sad hearts throbbing together and 

cheeks aglow, 
For a precious minute or two, till the 

signal to go ; 
x\nd then, all my youth and my love 

rising up like a flame, 
I whispered, "I: cannot leave you, my 

love, my bride. 
Come to me, my own, my wife ! " 

And lo ! as in a trance, 
With a shiver and tottering limbs, and 

a pitiful glance, 
As one who walked in a dream, she 

obeyed and came 
Constrained, and sank fainting down in 

her place at my side. 

There she lay long time on my breast, 

very pale and chill, 
And I trembled to see her poor white 

face, my dear ; 
And the swift train had sped us on far, 

when, with" something of fear. 
She said quickly, " Where am I ? " 

And I : *' With your husband to 

be. 
We are long miles away from your 

home. You will trust me, my 

own ? " 
And she moaned, " Ah ! how could I 

leave my father alone ? 
Poor father ! Ah ! what will they think 

of me when they know ? 
They will deem me unmaidenly — bold. 

Let me go. We were mad ; 
It is nothing to women to wither and 

pine and be sad. 
Let me go. It is better. Some weak- 
ness constrained me to come. 
I will go and be happy, fear not, with 

my equals at home." 
But I soothed her, and flashed a mes- 
sage that all was well, 



272 



GIVEN. 



And to promise a letter next day, telling 
all that there was to tell ; 

And she lay like a child on my heart, 
with her head bent wearily down, 

And lo ! on the autumn twilight, the 
glare and the turmoil of town. 



I hold him wrong who opens wide 
The secret, sacred doors of love, 
The paths by shame-fast footsteps tried, 
The mazes of the enchanted grove. 

I hold him wrong ; but Gwen the wife 
Is dearer far than Gwen the maid. 
We walk by hidden deeps of life. 
And no man maketh us afraid. 

I hold him wrong ; but who can prize 
At its full worth the love he gains, 
Till bound by mutual sacrifice, 
Till fused by mutual joys and pains ? 

Too happy are the halcyon days ; 
For Time the taker, Time the thief, 
Steals ghostlike down the flowery ways, 
And makes the blessed moments brief. 



I have left her ofttimes for a while, 
And then, on some pretext hastily 

found. 
Have hurried back to bask in her 

smile ; 
But now I am here fast bound, 
For my father is failing, day by day, 
And 'tis hard to keep the harpies at 

bay, 
Who would enter and drive him from 

house and home. 



They must not suspect that I, who am 

alone 
The mainstay on which they depend to 

secure their own, 
Am not the lover of one who brings 

lands and wealth. 
But bound to a penniless girl whom I 

wedded by stealth ; 
They must not dream it ; and therefore 

here must I stay. 
Though I seem indeed to lose every 

day 
That keeps me away from my love. 
Dear soul, it is springtime again, and 

fresh currents move 
Through the world, and stir the life in 

blossom and tree. 
And the little hidden life which ere 

long shall be. 



SCENE II.— Gwen. 

Dear love, I will be patient, yet 
I long to see you, and I fear 
Lest absence lead you to forget 
The things that once were dear. 

You tell me we awhile must hide 
Our union safe from prying eyes. 
But when your ailing father dies 
You will proclaim mc as your bride. 

I long that this might be, nor wait 
The death of any. I have been 
These last six months, 'spite love and 

fate. 
Dearest, as happy as a queen. 

But now another dearer life 
Forbids my careless patience more. 



GIVEN. 



273 



Pray God it may not come before 


The dull earth, watching, sleeps 


I am acknowledged as your wife. 


Within her leafless bowers. 




Until the west wind coming weeps 




Soft tears that turn to flowers. 


I did not know, 


Oh, cruel east ! that dost delay the 
world, 


When I walked careless on the hills, 


The hopeless load of human ills ; 


Withering the leaf of hope while yet 
unfurled. 


But neither could I know 




To what full height our happiness can 




grow. 


Over this gray cheerless town 




The stifling smoke-mist hangs, a squalid 


Sing, caged bird, sing ! 


pall. 


Is this your constant strain ? 


And night, too swift for springtide. 


•' I would, I would that I were free ; 


settles down 


I would, I would, I would that I were 


Before the shades of mountain-evenings 


once again 


fall. 


Sitting alone within a leafy tree ; 


I sicken here alone, dull day by day. 


I would that I might be 


To watch the turmoil wake and fade 


Breathing free air far from this gilded 


away. 


pain." 




Ah, bird ! I would be free 


Why does my dear not come. 


As you, for I weary here. 


Or write or send some little loving 


And yet, my bird, I have one so dear, 


word ? 


so dear. 


It is not here as 'twas at home. 


That, if he might only bide with me. 


I have no companion but this prisoned 


I should no longer care 


bird ; 


To change this stifling, fettered air 


No friend in all the throng to hear my 


For the free mountain-breathings fresh 


sighs ; 


and fair. 


No glance, but the cold stare of alien 
eyes. 


Cold east and drear, 


No friend, nor love nor care 


Thy chill breath veils the world in 


To hold me ; but when summer suns 


cheerless gray. 


return 


Sad east, while thou art here, 


And wake this stagnant and exhausted 


Life creeps with halting feet its weary 


air. 


way. 


The little dearer life for which I yearn 


I feel you pierce my heart, oh, cold 


May wake, and make me happier than 


east wind ! 


of old, 


Sad east ! that leavest lifeless plains 


Watching the innocent life my arms 


behind. 


enfold. 



274 



GWEN. 



ACT IV. 



Cold east and drear, 


If my husband is ailing ; he keeps 


Spreading a noontide darkness on the 


away — 


town. 


And I have but faltering words to say. 


You shall not blight my faith, nor 


And to-day I thought, as I sate in my 


make me fear, 


lonely room, 


Nor leave me in despond, nor drag me 


With a little frock on my lap, in the 


down. 


gathering gloom. 


I am alone ; but, if he loves me still, 


And the woman came with the lights, 


I am not all alone, sad days and chill. 


that she seemed to look 




With the old respect no more, but a 




cold rebuke. 


SCENE III. 


Does she doubt, then, I am his wife? I 




will fly ; I will go ; 


I grieve that my father stays away. 


I will tell her all my secret. Ah, no ! 


Though his letters are always dear and 


ah, no ! 


kind, 


Great Heaven, does she think he is 


But sometimes I think they seem to 


gone and will no more come ? 


convey 


Oh, Henry, 'tis cruel to leave me, come 


Some shadow of pain on a doubtful 


to me, come home ! 


mind ; 




But he does not know that I am alone, 




For I could not tell him my dear was 




gone, 


SCENE IV. 


And it may be he has not forgiven quite 




Our foolish and hurried flight. 


This is the fourth dull week — 


What ? Do I not know— forgive, did 


I am wretched and sick at heart — 


Isay?— 


Since the thought came first which I 


That nought which falls short of com- 


fear to write or speak. 


mitted wrong 


And I have no rest at night ; for I sud- 


Would keep his heart from his child for 


denly start, 


long. 


Thinking I hear his voice calling to me 


Nought that a kiss would not chase 


in pain. 


away ? 


Mixed with voices of scorn sometimes, 




through the dead city-night ; 


Dear father ! I would I might welcome 


And then, if my tired eyes sink to 


him here ! 


slumber again. 


For, brooding here day by day, 


I wake in deadly fright. 


My mind grows full of a formless fear. 


And before the bustle of life revives in 


And I dread the glance of the women ; 


the street, 


the sneer 


I watch for the hurrying sound of the 


Which I seem to see on their lips and eyes, 


messenger's feet, 


As they ask sometimes with a hard 


And I hold my breath as he comes with 


surprise 


a sickening fear. 



SCENE V. 



GWEN. 



275 



But the sharp summons passes 


on 


I will hide me away 


quickly, and never here 




From the cold world again. 


He stays ; but I must not despair, nor 




ever forget 




I can stay here no longer ; 


That I live for a ripening Hfe, which 


Whatever may come, 


'twould injure to fret. 




I will go to my father 
And— die at home. 


Hut I know that my face is pale and 




anxious and thin, 




My heart is heavy, 


Which my love would hardly know 


if 


My life runs slow ; 


he saw me again ; 




To my Father in Heaven 


And I look in the glass, and I start 


to 


I open my woe. 


see therein 






Two hollow eyes answer my gaze with 




a look of pain. 






And perhaps he would love me 


no 


SCENE V. 


more in my beauty's disgrace ; 
Perhaps he was only a slave to a foolish 


What is it that has been ? 


face ; 
Perhaps But I know I am sick 




Let me once recall again 


in 


The fear that came upon me. 


body and mind, 




And the story of my pain. 


Or I could not doubt my love, who v 
always kind. 


^as 






Vester-eve, as I sat alone, 




Somebody entered, and read 






How the Earl, at some foreign bath, 
Had been ailing and now was dead ; 


My heart is heavy, 






My life runs low. 




And pointed to the place, 


My young blood's pulses 




And the letters seemed to swim, 


Beat faint and slow. 




And the whole room whirling round 
and round, 


I cannot believe, 




As my sight grew faint and dim. 


Yet I dare not doubt, 






For when faith is shadowed 




For 'twas said that the new Earl, 


Love's fire goes out. 




His mourning done, would wed 

The heiress of whom he told me before ; 


Oh, Love, what is this 




And I wished that I was dead. 


That thy strong power brings 






To those thou hast touched 




And they muttered, with freezing 


With thy vanishing wings ? 




glances, 
" They had thought 'twas thus, before ; " 


Oh, Love, it was cruel 




And I could not answer a single word 


To bring us to pain. 




But fell upon the floor. 



276 



GWEN. 



And now I lie ailing and weak, 
Sick in body and mind and heart; 
But to-morrow, if God help me, 
I will rouse me and depart. 

Oh, father, you will not spurn me, 
Nor think me what they say, 
But take us back to your heart and life. 
And my grief shall fade away. 



SCENE VI. 

Oh, the sweet air of the hills, 
That on this fair summer night 
Breathes on me as I 'scape at last 
From the glare of the long day, 
From the dust of the long plain, 
And the rushing, maddening train ! 

Here I mount among the pines 
By the path we knew so well. 
All is there unchanged but I. 
Hark ! the thunder of the fall. 
See the ash-grove where we sate. 
There we lingered at the gate. 

Nothing changed, Init I am changed. 
Slowly up the well-loved steep, 
Failing footsteps toiling slow, 
Where, upon the morning hills, 
Twelve months since my feet would go 
Bounding lightly as the roe. 

None have seen me, that is well — 
Yet if here I were to fail — 
Courage ! I shall reach there — Nay, 
I must rest awhile ; then climb 
Slowly through the fragrant gloom, 
Where my garden roses bloom. — 

It is finished. Dear white head 
Bending low upon thy book. 



Homely lamp, familiar room. 
Ye will welcome me, I know. 
Open, father ; I am come 
Broken-hearted to my home ! 



ACT V. 



SCENE I.— GwEN. 

It is over now. 

I have been a long time ill, 

But to-day I am able to wander slow 

To the churchyard round the hill. 

'Tis there they have laid my little love, 

Who lingered three little months — it 

was not long — 
And there they will lay me too, ere the 

waning light grows strong. 

It is but a little grave 

Where my little one is laid, 

But I keep it decked with white flowers 

every day, 
And above, a kindly yew's protecting 

shade 
Shelters it safe from rain and wind. 
Sleep fast, my darling, sleep while yet 

you may ; 
■ Your mother will not linger long behind. 

\ Dear child, I wonder when 

I The last great morning breaks and we 

; shall wake, 

i If I may bear you then 

' Safe in my nursing arms for Him to 

i take ; 

I Or will He suffer you to come before. 

White soul, while I am waiting at the 
! door ? 



! Dear little grave, I strew 
j P'resh autumn flowers and 
blooms on you ; 



garden 



GIVEN. 



277 



I strew upon you roses white and red ; 
I fling my heart upon you, narrow bed ! 

Once, twelve months since, I launched 

my heart, a rose, 
Where, lit with laughter, Love's sweet 

river goes. 
And lo ! once more the year's swift 

pinions move. 
And now I cast it on the grave of love. 

My love, my self, my child. 

Lie buried here, and I am free again. 

I would I were a slave ; I loved my 

chain. 
I would that I might see your sweet 

eyes mild ; 
They were your father's eyes, who loves 

not me 

I blame him not, but do forgive for 

thee. 
It is not long I stay, my life, my dear, 
Not long until we are together here. 

Last year — it seems an age ago — 
I had not seen him : then we went 
Together on our road ; and so, 
By ways and converse innocent. 
We gained at last the sacred gate 
Of wedlock, and the hand of Fate 
Lifted the latch, and we passed in 
To the enchanted ground therein. 
And now the winds of autumn rave, 
And love lies dead within a grave. 

Dear love, that liest there so still, 
I go now till to-morrow's sun ; 
The autumn evening gathers chill. 
The day is well-nigh done. 
Sleep, dear, through all thy long un- 
troubled night. 
Sleep calmly till the Light ! 



SCENE n. 

What ? Can a second springtide burst, 

As happy as the first, 

From out the midst of dark autumnal 

days? 
And can the dead roots start ? 
And can the withered heart 
Rise upward from despair to joy and 

praise ? 
Yes, though with thrills of almost pain. 
They can, again. 

For as I turned yesterday, sad and 

slow. 
From where my darling lies below, 
Fulfilled with sad sweet thoughts of the 

things that have been, 
I saw my dear father's kindly face, 
As he came to meet me with hurried 

pace, 
And a grave smile that told me the 

news that he bore was good ; 
But he slackened his steps when he saw 

me, and calmed his mood. 
And I said, "Tell me all." And he 

answered, " 'Tis well, my dear. 
He was faithful ; I knew it, and is, for 

his letter is here," 
And he drew it forth ; and I knew that 

the writer was he. 
And the title was that which he bears, 

and 'twas meant for me. 

Then my father kissed my forehead and 
left me alone, 

And I sat down to read what he said 
on a graveyard stone. 

My love ! He too had been ill, for a 
chill he caught 

When the Earl lay dying abroad, well- 
nigh brought him to nought ; 



278 



GIVEN. 



Growing to fevered heats and a wander- 


And we mutely went again 


ing brain, 


By the dear old paths once more. 


Till he raved for his nurse of last year 


And I half forgot my sorrow 


to soothe him again ; 


And the world was as before. 


And when, after many days, he had 




risen to find 


And he spoke with .cheering words 


The wife he was forced to leave, with 


Of the time when I should come 


unquiet mind, * 


To cherish other children 


He found me not, but they said I had 


In his old ancestral home. 


gone to my home. 




And so, with loving regards, he pro- 


Oh, my love as true as steel. 


mised to come, 


W^ith your comfort kindly meant, 


Almost ere his letter could reach me. 


I would not seek to shadow 


Oh, love ! oh, my dear ! 


The light of your content ; 


I shall see you again, though 'tis late ; 




and, meanwhile, a great fear 


But a hundred signs assure me, 


Rises up lest you grieve for your child 


Signs indefinite yet strong. 


whom you never have seen. 


That my fate is wholly written 




And I linger not for long. 




Dearest, let us cling together, 


SCENE III. 


Heart to heart and eye to eye ; 


He has come, he has been ; 


Let us be together living, 


I have kissed him again and again. 


And I shall not fear to die. 


Ah, God ! but it is hard to die, 




For it was not he was to blame at all, 




but I. 




It was I, with my coward distrust and 


SCENE IV.— Henry. 


unreasoning fear, 




WTio could not put faith in my love, 


This is the last time that I tread 


but shrank back from a sneer. 


These unforgotten ways, 


I am glad he was true throughout, 


For to-morrow we follow the swallow 


though my sentence of doom 


over the wave. 


Sounds clear as I lie alone in my own 


We have spent our Mays ; 


white room. 


Chill autumn has come and found us 




bent over a grave, 




The grave of our youthful love and the 




hopes that are dead. 


To-day was a happy day. 




When, upon my husband's breast, 


My dear, she is very pale and worn, 


I leant beside the grassy mound 


Save the brilliant spot that flushes on 


Where our firstborn lies at rest. 


cither cheek ; 



GWEN. 



279 



She recalls no longer the breezes and 

freshness of morn 
As she leans upon me, slow and weak ; 
But I trust the warm summer sun and 

the honeyed air, 
And the daily sights and sounds of 

things that are fair, 
May rouse her and lighten her load of 

care. 
Dear child ! to think of her pining 

alone. 
While I lay longing for her and too 

weak to write. 
And afraid to disclose by a look or a 

tone 
The thing which discovered hadw^-eckcd 

us quite ! 
Ah, me ! 'twas a wretched time ; and 

now it is done, 
My father is gone and my son, and I 

only remain, 
Weak in frame, with a fading wife and 

a burden of pain. 
Dear soul, I will do what by love and 

by gold can be done ; 
I will bask with you safe from chill in 

the southern sun ; 
And I pray that -when summer returns 

and the meadows grow green, 
You may sit in my stately home, as 

happy and proud as a queen. 

But, oh ! what a fear is there 

I dare not speak, 

As I see the crimson deepen 

On the pale wan cheek. 

Nay, love, you are more lovely so, 

A thousand times more fair, 

Than when, twelve little months ago. 

You Avent so free from care. 

More dear you are, my love, and sweet, 

A thousand times more dear, 

Than when my heart forgot to beat 



In the springtime of the year. 

A thousand times more dear, my love, 

A thousand times more dear. 

For the tender pity that you move 

And the anxious boding fear. 



To-morrow, may it be 

A new existence that we twain shall 

prove 
Upon the western sea, 
Bound for some happier land of health 

and love. 

New hopes, new fears, new pains, 
New joys ; our hearts are ready, and 

we trust 
The Omnipotent Will that reigns 
Lifts not oui hopes to dash them in the 

dust. 

We hope ; we cannot tell ; 
We go together alone, forgetting all ; 
For love, it shall be well, 
Though hfe, a waning fire, may sink 
and fall. 

Yet, if a prayer may move 

Thy dread decrees, Omnipotent Will, 

Spare, spare my innocent love 

To my fond gaze a little longer still. 



SCENE v.— GwEX. 

Plere is a calm bright day. 
And my husband's tender voice ; 
He has climbed up from the village. 
And I struggle to rejoice. 

For I feel that to sorrow longer 
For the little one who has fled, 



28o 



GVVEN. 



ACT v., SCENE V. 



My angel who rejoices 
• Among the blessed dead, 

Were a morbid grief, displeasing 
To the Lord of joy and pain. 
Nay, I will not sorrow longer ; 
I will strive to live again. 

To the beautiful far countries 
Where the soft unfailing sun 
Beams cloudless through the winter, 
And the flowers are never done, 

He will take me, undelaying, 
None beside us, only me, 
By the ship that leaves to-morrow 
The great city on the sea ; 

Every morning growing milder. 
As we southward wing our way, 
Till our swift ship casts her anchor 
In some blue unruffled bay. 

Stately cities I have read of, 
Naples, Rome in all her pride — 
I shall see them, a great lady. 
With my husband at my side. 

I shall see them when returning 
From the sacred stream of Nile, 
From vast tombs of unknown rulers, 
And the Sphinx's changeless smile. 

I shall see them. But in springtime. 
When the bitter east is done, 
I shall greet these dear old mountains 
Shining in the sober sun ; 

I shall see my father smiling ; 

I shall bend once more again 

O'er my sleeper's flower-strewed cradle. 

Mingling tender hope with pain. 



I shall come, though, maybe sooner, 
When I shall not see nor hear ; 
For my love has given his promise 
I shall rest beside my dear. 



P'arewell, oh dear, dear hills ! 

I do not know if I shall see you more. 

Farewell ! 'tis set of sun, the night is 

near. 
Farewell ! Below, the mist of autumn 

fills 
The sleeping vale with winding vapours 

frore, 
And hides from sight the yellow woods 

and sere. 

But on the heights the day's declining 

fire 
Bathes all the summits in a haze of gold. 
Not yet the cold mist, stealing high and 

higher. 
Touches the purple glow with fingers 

cold ; 
Not yet the ruddy light from out the 

sky 
Goes, nor the orange shadows fade and 

die. 

Here, far above the grave of dying day. 
The clear night comes, and hills and 

vales grow dark. 
But soon the first faint star, a lucid spark, 
Glimmers ; and, lo ! the ineffable array ! 
A myriad suns for one ! strange suns 

and far. 
The hidden homes where blessed spirits 

are ! 

Oh ! night of Being, like the night of 

day. 
How should I fear because your shadows 

fall? 



ACT VI., SCENE I. 



GIVEN. 



281 



Who knows from what fresh glories thy 

dark pall 
For failing vision lifts the veil away ? 
What boundless spiritual orbits rise 
Before the inward gaze of dying eyes ? 

Farewell, oh little grave, 
Wherein I leave my buried heart awhile ! 
Thick yew, protect it Avell until I come ; 
Shelter it ; let not winds of winter rave, 
Nor sharp frosts fret nor snows, nor 

floods defile. 
Here is my heart, and here my waiting 

home. 
Farewell ! farewell ! 



ACT VI. 

SCENE I.— Henry. 

The sweet cold air of these untrodden 

hills 
Breathes gently. Five and twenty years 

have gone 
Since here my father trod, young, high 

in hope, 
With all the world before him ; nor as yet 
The slow-consuming fire of deep decay 
Had sapped his youthful hope, and left 

his life 
To drag along its crippled journey, spent 
In southern lands, wherever the chill 

east 
Might come not ; year by year : and 

last of all, 
Since I have grown from boyhood, 

visiting 
His country never ; cut off and divorced 
From all the joys that make existence 

sweet 
To the aspiring great — the fame of 

men 



The name which every morning's broad- 
sheet takes 
To the eyes and hearts of millions — all 

the thirst 
For the statesman's high career sated, 

and lost 
In a strange lethargy which bound him 

fast 
To an inglorious ease. And yet I know 
A time there was when the more gene- 
rous part 
Allured his growing soul. For I have 

found 
Among his papers, time-stained notes 

which tell 
Of deeper studies far than I have dreamt 

of; 
Of high hopes and ambitions ; such as 

fire 
Those who, as he and I, are placed by 

Fate 
On such high vantage that to will alone 
And labour is enough, and each ap- 
proach 
Of honour, the Senate itself, which 

opens not 
To lower birth until slow-creeping age 
Derides the folly, flings back early 

doors 
To their unbroken youth. These have 

I found. 
And, oh most strange of all ! close 

manuscripts 
Of sceptical themes— my father's, his 

who was, 
Of all men I have known, most rapt by 

faith 
And very full of Godhead — doubts and 

fears 
And anxious questionings, changed yet 

the same, 
Differing in form alone from those which 
now 



282 



GIVEN, 



At our own Oxford echo through old 


Our father's darling, who now comes 


rooms 


with me 


Filled with young heated disputants, 


When hither, after years of exile spent 


whose minds 


From home and homely scenes, we turn 


Seize with a frolic eagerness the doubts 


and leave 


Which have perplexed all time. All 


The turmoil of the Season and the chase 


these I found — 


Of seltish worldlings, eager to secure 


Ah, life is wonderful ! We are the 


Those who are rich or fair. 


sport 


I had found of late. 


Of great laws swinging slowly through 


Mention among his letters here and 


an arc 


there 


Immeasurably vast, ^^'e doubt our 


Of this Welsh village, where, when he 


doubts, 


was young, 


We hug our faiths, and fancy we are free 


He spent a summer. So Ave left be- 


Who are shut fast of Time. 


hind 


What power it was 


The senseless whirl, and now a week or 


Froze fast his life I know not, but 


more 


sometimes 


In this unclouded weather, bright and 


I think there must have come upon his 


fair. 


life 


Have wandered careless o'er these 


Some overmastering passion, some 


purple hills, 


young love 


Where once our father, older scarce 


Such as the poets feign, for some young 


than I, 


heart, 


Roved in that far-off summer. We have 


Which held him back and clogged him. 


kept 


Yet I know — 


Our name and rank a secret, and arc 


I would stake my life upon it — naught 


free 


of wrong 


To come and go at pleasure, as did he. 


Came nigh him. Only hardly love it 


Dear father, years ago. Ah I sweet 


was 


and strange. 


That bound him to our mother — the 


The cycle of a life which turns and 


high dame 


turns 


He spoke of seldom, mourned seldomer 


Round to the self-same spot, changed 


still, 


yet the same ; 


Whom scarcely I recall ; whose clear 


The same but for the mystic beat of 


cold face 


Time ; 


Looks from beneath its coronet in my 


The same but for the ineffable change 


hall, 


of Being, 


Statelier than any of our line. Poor 


Which in the same life, grown another. 


mother ! 


works 


She left us early — me and little Gwen ; 


Infinite depths of change. 


Gwen, whom men know as I.ady 


Somehow — I know not 


Gwendoline, 


If aughl it be but fancy— but I think 



SCEXE ir. 



GIVEN. 



283 



The secret of his life, if such there 

were, 
Lies hid within these hills ; and I re- 
member 
That day, when he was dying and his 

breath 
Came feebler even than wont — the un- 
ruffled sea 
Was sapphire, and the orange-groves 

behind 
Showed flecked with gold — we heard a 

far-off bell 
Call from the campanile on the hill. 
And then he roused himself: " Hark ! 

•'tis the bell— 
Yxoxw the dear church- tower on the hill 

above — 
They both are there — 'tis a fair spot — 

the path 
Is steep from out the village, but the air 
Is balmy — 'tis the well-remembered 

bell— 
They are singing now in Welsh, and 

the sound soothes 
The sleepers by the yew." 

And now they tell me 
There is indeed a church on yonder 

hill, 
A little church half hidden by dark 

yews. 
Which looks upon the long green vale 

and scans 
The ever-winding river. So my sister. 
Who learnt in Italy the sketcher's art. 
Has gone before, armed with all fit 

devices 
To snare the fleeting landscape. It is 

time 
To join her. I must hasten ; it may be 
(She is not strong, dear sister, but soon 

tires) 
She tires of sketching and awaits me. 

Father, 



I would that you were with us, and 

might breathe 
This sweet cold air again as young as I, 



SCENE II.— GwEN. 

How fair and fresh from this gray 

churchyard shows 
The rich green vale beneath. Upon 

the deep 
Lush meadows, where the black herds 

grazing seem 
Like rooks upon the grass, a silvery 

gleam, 
Now lost and now discovered, marks 

the place 
Where winds the brimming river. Here, 

thick woods 
Of oak and beech upon the sloping 

banks 
Bend to the shadowy stream which 

glides beneath. 
There, through the emerald meads, 

shallow or deep. 
It hastes or loiters, till the tall dark 

elms. 
Grouped by the distance, hide it. And 

above, 
On either hand the eternal mountains 

rise, 
Pine-clad below, upon whose upper 

heights 
The unfenced heather purples. All the 

sky 
Is flecked with soft white fleecy clouds 

which cast 
Bewildering charms of shadow ; and 

beyond, 
A shining sapphire drawn 'twixt earth 

and sky. 
Glitters the summer sea. Most beau- 
tiful 



284 



GlVEiV. 



ACT VI. 



Thou art, oh motherland, which I 


He kept no secret from his earliest years 


have known 


Of which I knew not. He has told me 


As yet so little. Beautiful art thou 


all— 


My second mother, sunny Italy, 


His studious youth, his feeble health, 


Where the blue heaven is brighter, and 


the doubt 


the sea 


Of God and man which for a while 


Gives back a clearer azure. But for me 


obscured 


There grows a tenderer charm from 


His noble brain and left it impotent — 


these green fields 


And somehow it was here, upon these 


And purple hills and white-flecked 


hills, 


skies, denied 


From out this very spot, it may be. 


To thy more brilliant landscape. Per- 


gazing 


haps it is 


On all the loveliness of earth and sky 


In part because my father loved them 


And silver sea, the waters of his soul 


well, 


Were loosed, and flowed onward strong 


Dear father whom I loved, and who 


and clear. 


loved me 


To join the Infinite Deep ! 


Closer than might a mother. 


There comes a cloud 


Well ! enough ! 


Upon the sky and gusts of sudden 


I will draw no more to-day, but let the 


wind ; 


scene 


The beauty fades, as treacherous as 


Sink on my soul, and fix itself, and 


youth. 


breed 


And fleeting, and I thought I heard a 


Fresh scenes of beauty to inspire my 


roll ^ 


hand 


Of thunder drawing near. I would my 


When the short days are dull, and all 


brother 


the sky 


Were come. I am afraid. The church 


A gloomy pall, and gusts of wintry 


is closed — 


rain 


It is not here as 'tis in Italy, 


Beat on the darkling city. 


Where all who choose may kneel as 


I will muse 


welcome guests 


A little till my brother comes, and 


Within God's House ; but yon thick 


think 


yew that stands 


How good he was whose memory 


Above that gleaming cross will shelter 


brings us here ; 


me 


How careless of himself, how prompt 


From heavier storms than this. 


to give 


Here I am safe. 


Whatever good a father's hand can 


See with what tender care some loving 


give 


hand 


To his motherless girl. I scarcely had 


Keeps green the sward, and sets it round 


a thought 


with flowers 


He did not share, and as I think. 


That bloom as in a garden ! One red 


indeed. 


rose 



GIVEN. 



285 



Twines round the cross, and sheds in 


Ere Moses preached or Homer sung, 


this rude wind 


Ere Buddha's musing thought or Plato's 


Its crimson petals. Two graves stretch 


silvery tongue. 


beneath, 


We pace our destined path with failing 


And three sleep under. Ah ! 'tis the 


footsteps weak ; 


old vicar's 


A little more we see, a little more 


Who lived here forty years and died 


Of that great orb which shineth day and 


last year. 


night 


"Also " — ah, see my brother comes at 


Through the high heaven, now hidden, 


last- 


now too bright, 


" Also of "—strange, almost my name 


The Sun to which the earth on which 


— GWENLLLVN, 


we are. 


His daughter, who died aged 


Life's labouring world, is as the feeblest 


TWENTY YEARS "— 


star. 


The year ? — one year before my father's 




marriage— 


Nor this firm globe we know 


Ah me ! these two were parted long. 


Which lies beneath our feet ; 


long years ! 


Nor by what grades we have grown and 


" Countess of "—What is this ? My 


yet shall grow, 


father's title ! 


Through chains of miracle, more and 


Father, what means it ? — "And her 


more complete ; 


INFANT son 


By what decrees the watery earth 


Henry, Lord "—What, my brother's ? 


Compacted grew the womb of countless 


What is this ? 


birth ; 


It is strange. Quick ! I am faint- 


Nor, when the failing breath 


ing .. . 


Is taken by the frozen lips of Death, 


Henry ! Henry ! 


Whither the Spoiler, fleeing with his 




prey. 




The fluttering, wandering Wonder bears 


EPILOGUE. 


away. 


The silent Forces of the World, 


The powers of Pain and Wrong, 


Time, Change, and Fate, deride us 


Immeasurably strong. 


still ; 


Assail our souls, and chill with common 


Nor ever from the hidden summit, 


doubt 


furled. 


Clear brain and heart devout : 


Where sits the Eternal Will, 


War, Pestilence, and Famine, as of old. 


The clouds of Pain and Error rise 


The lust of the flesh, the baser lust of 


Before our straining eyes. 


gold. 




Vex us and harm us still ; 


It is to-day as 'twas before, 


Fire comes, and crash and wreck, and 


From the far days when Man began to 


lives are shed 


speak, 


As if the Eternal Will itself were dead ,- 



286 



THE ODE OF CREATION. 



And sometimes Wrong and Right, the 


Our trivial days, and calms the ignoble 


thing we fear, 


strife, 


The thing we cherish, draw confusedly 


Raises the waning life with his sweet 


near ; 


breath, 


We know not which to choose, Ave 


And from the arms of Death 


cannot separate 


Soars with it to the eternal shore. 


Our longing and our hate. 


Where sight or thought of evil comes no 




more. 


But Love the Conqueror, Love, Im- 




mortal Love, 


Love sitteth now above, 


Through the high heaven doth move. 


Enthroned in glory, 


Spurning the brute earth with his purple 


And yet hath deigned to move 


wings. 


Through life's sad story. 


And from the great Sun brings 


Fair Name, we are only thine ! 


Some radiant beam to light the House 


Thou only art divine ! 


of Life, 


Be with us to the end, for there is 


Uplifts our grosser thought, and makes 


none 


us pure ; 


But thou to bind together God and 


And to a Higher Purpose doth mature 


Man in one ! 



THE ODE OF LIFE. 



THE ODE OF CREATIOX. 

A -DARK and boundless deep. 
And a blind height above. 
Untrodden fields of sleep. 
Wherein no force may move. 
Where every sound is still. 
Nor breathes a living breath ; — 
These are the heights, these are the 

depths, these are the voids of 

Death. 

But slowly on the lifeless plain 
There wakes a far-sent ray, a little stnr, 
A tiny spark of Being from afar, 
A throb of precious pain. 



It is done, it has been, it has risen, the 

glimmer of Life, 
The dark void withdrawing around, 
It breaks with a whisper of sound, 
Through the wastes of silence and sleep. 
There is no more stillness nor Death, 
The great Universe wakes with a deep- 
drawn singultient breath. 
The great orbs cohere and spin on their 

measureless ways — 
— The great suns awaken and shine, 
ringed with girdles of fire every 
one — 
All the worlds are on fire and ablaze — 
The flaming globes circle and whirl 
each one round its sun 



THE ODE OF CREATION. 



287 



— The hot seas seethe and bellow — 

the fixed hills glow — 
And the blast of Creation burns fierce 

while the centuries grow; 
And Life and Time have begun I 

Myriads on myriads of years ! 

Or was there indeed no time except 

in the Infinite Mind ? 
And was there indeed no ceaseless 

circling of spheres? 
Since no sentient eye might mark the 

peripheries wind, 
And at length the great Life of the 

worlds grown concentrate would 

thrill 
Through some lowly speck of matter, 

which, waxing apart, 
Grew conscious by slow degrees, and 

blossomed in Will ; 
Weak centres of Force, which floated 

as motes in a beam. 
Automatic, contracting, expanding, but 

consciousless yet. 
Till a stronger force working within 

them would raise them once more. 
Pushing with inchoate fin as if with an 

oar 
Afloat on the slow warm stream ; 
And another Creation has come and a 

new-begun strife. 
With this primal glimmer of life. 

Myriads on myriads of years ! if Time 
there were yet. 

When no soul was by to remember or 
to forget ; 

The fin growing stronger, and changing 
to wing or to claw, 

Struggle on struggle, sentience, con- 
sciousness, ravin, and pain. 

Monstrous and mailed forms in the 
ooze, or hurtling thro' air, 



Waging through oeons of time the in- 
effable struggles which gain 

Order thro' waste and thro' wear. 

Till the mastodon stalks forth in might 
with hoof and with jaw, 

And the law of the Higher prevails, the 
Ultimate Law, 

And the cooler earth teems with life, on 
land and in sea : 

Life organic in beast, fish, or bird, in 
herb or in tree, 

Life dominant, life exulting with quick- 
coming breath. 

Life that fades down and sinks in the 
silence and slumber of Death. 

But no soul to mark the struggle nor 
thought which might turn 

To whence those weird fires burn. 

Successions, progressions, a scheme of 
insensible life. 

One \\'ill alone directing the infinite 
strife. 

One Force, one Eye, one Sole and 
Regarding Mind, 

In a Universe deaf and blind I 

And was it some Inner Law, 
Some hidden potency of Force, 
Or some creative breath Divine, 
Which sped the creature on its upward 

course ? 
Until at last it woke and saw. 
With visual forces fine. 
The Godhead that was round it every- 
where, 
The spiritual essence fair. 
Which doth innerve this outward show 

of things — 
And filled the brute with high imagin- 
ings, 
And winging it with new-found wings 
Lifted its aspect to the infinite sky. 
Where, in the Light of the Creative Eye 



288 



THE ODE OF INFANCY. 



Its ancient slough away it cast, 


And write as in a book 


And rose to Man at last ! 


Thy infinite possibilities of life ; 




What fate awaits thee in the coming 


How know we or can trace 


strife. 


The first beginnings of all Time, 


What joys, what triumphs in the grow- 


Who know not yet indeed how this our 


ing years, 


race 


What depths of woe and tears ? 


Rises to heights sublime ? 




In darkness does our life begin, 


I see thee lie 


Hidden and fenced within. 


Safe in thy silken cradle, sunk in down, 


In darkness and obscurity 


Within thy father's palace-chambers 


Dwell the blind germs which yet shall 


fair ; 


be. 


Thy guarded slumbers breathing tem- 


In darkness the slow rolling months 


pered air ; 


fulfil 


The soft eyes, full of yearning, watch- 


The pre-ordained will. 


ing by ; 


And even in childhood's earliest days, 


Caressing arms waiting thy waking cry ; 


No memory-haunted ways 


All luxury and state which can assuage 


Take our first footsteps ; but in deep 


Life's painful heritage ; 


And unremembered tracts of sleep 


The prayers of a people swell for thee 


The immature creature dwells, nor can 


Up to the careless skies which cover all. 


recall 


And yet it may be thine to fall 


Its former self or primal state at all. 


Far from thy loved and native land, 




And end thy imperfect, innocent life- 




tale here, 


THE ODE OF INFANCY. 


Forsaken on a savage desert strand. 




Pierced through and through by some 


Oh, little child ! 


barbarian spear. 


Stretched on thy mother's knees, with 




steadfast gaze 


I see thy tiny face 


And innocent aspect mild. 


Pale, worn with hunger, and large 


Viewing this novel scene in mute amaze, 


hollow eyes. 


Following 'the moving light, thy 


Upon the frozen way-side laid 


mother's smile, 


Stiffening in thy dead mother's cold 


And storing up the while 


embrace. 


New precious knowledge till thou 


I hear thy piteous cries 


com'st to be 


When the sot flings thee down with 


Sage it may be or clown — 


limbs that bleed- 


Soaring or sinking down, 


Flings thee, and takes no heed ; 


To topmost heights of weal or depths of 


Weak, helpless, born to misery, girt 


misery ; 


round 


How shall I dare to mark thy innocent 


With vice and sin and shame, in sight 


look, 


and sound. 



THE ODE OF INFANCY. 



289 



Poor life foredoomed, already sunk and 

lost ; 
Too often sent to tread the ways of 

death 
With childish failing breath ; 
Yet ofttimes holding power 
To bloom a virgin flower 
Upon the untrodden heights closed to 

the multitude, 
Among the wise and good. 

Or with brown face thou comest and 

limb, 
Naked, on the warm soil that bears the 

palm ; 
Or haply the young heir of all the dim 
And half-forgotten realms whose ruins 

stand 
Sown lion-haunted on the deathlike calm 
Which wraps the Egyptian or Assyrian 

sand, 
Reared 'midst the dust of empires ; or 

art now 
As through all history thou wert, the 

child 
Of savage parents, rude and wild. 
Springing and falling ; born to flower 

and seed, 
Or sink upon the uncaring earth, a weed 
Trodden by the pitiless feet of cruel men 
With hearts that ape the tiger's ; or art 

born 
In the old, old empire, which hath long 

outworn 
God and the hopes of man, and yet 

coheres. 
Propped by its own far-reaching bulk, 

as when 
It did emerge from savagery and grew, 
Oh, child ! as yet may you, 
To worldly strength, and knowledge, 

and dead lore 
Of wisdom fled before, 



And dull content, and soulless hopes 
and fears. 

Wherever thou mayest be, 

To me thou art wonderful and strange 

to see — 
Busied with trifles, rapt with simple toys. 
As men with graver joys. 
I hear thy lisping accents slowly reach 
The miracle of speech ; 
I mark thy innocent smile ; 
I treasure up each baby wile 
Which smooths the brow of thought, 

the front of care. 
Thou royal scion, born to be the heir 
Of all the unrecorded days, since first 
Man rose to his full being, once blest, 

and then accurst ! 

In weal and woe and ill 
Thou art a miracle still. 
From snow-bound hut to equatorial 

strand. 
Above thee still regarding angels stand ; 
While thy brief life-tale fleeteth like a 

dream 
Across Creation's glass. 
Dark powers of ill press thee on either 

side. 
As now thy swift years pass. 
Revealing on the young soul's tablets 

white 
The eternal characters of Right ; 
Or sometimes with the growing years 

grown strong 
The unhallowed signs of wrong. 

Oh, little child ! thou bringest with 

thee still, 
As Moses, parting from the fiery hill. 
Some dim reflection in thine eyes, 
Some sense of Godhead, some indefinite 

wonder 

U 



290 



THE ODE OF CHILDHOOD, 



As of one drifted here unwillingly ; 
Who knows no speech of ours, and yet 

doth keep 
Some dumb remembrance of a gracious 

home 
Which lights his waking hours and fills 

his sleep 
With precious visions which unbidden 

come ; 
Some golden link which nought of earth 

can sunder, 
Some glimpse of a more glorious land 

and sea ! 

Oh, precious vision fleeting past ! 

Oh, age too fair to last ! 

For soon new gifts and powers are 

thine. 
And growing springs and summers 

bring 
Boyhood or girlhood hastening, 
And nerve the agile limb, and teach, 
With the new gift of speech, 
The wonders that stand round on every 

side. 
And Life's imperial portals opening 

gradually wide. 



THE ODE OF CHILDHOOD. 
I. Boyhood. 

Fair budding age, 

Which next upon life's stage 

Passest a fairy dream before the eyes. 

High health and bounding limb, 

Eager and stretching towards the 

wished-for prize ; 
Whate'er the passing care that takes 

thy thought, 
I catch the sweet brisk scent of trodden 

grass 
When through the golden afternoon 



Of a long day in June, 
Until the twilight dim, 
The playfield echoes with the joyous 

noise 
Of troops of agile boys, 
Who, bare-armed, throw the rapid- 
bounding ball ; 
Who shout and race and fall. 
I see the warm pool fringed with 

meadow-sv.'eet, 
Where stream in summer, with eager 

feet 
Through gold of buttercups and crested 

grass 
The gay processions stripping as they 

pass. 
I hear the cool and glassy depths 

divide 
As the bold fair young bodies, far more 

fair 
Than ever sculptured Nereids were, 
Plunge fearless down, or push, with 

front or side. 
Through the caressing wave. 
I mark the deadly chill, thro' the young 

blood, 
When some young life, snatched from 

the cruel flood, 
Looks once upon the flowers, the fields, 

the sun, — 
Looks once, and then is done ! 
Or the grey, frosty field, and the great 

ball 
Urged on by flying feet. 
Or when the skate rings on the frozen 

lake. 
The gliding phantoms fleet, 
Rosy with health, and laughing though 

they fall. 
Or by the rapid stream or swirling 

pool. 
The fisher, with his pliant wand. 
Or by the covert-side, taking his stand, 



THE ODE OF CHILDHOOD, 



291 



The shooter, watching patient hour hy 

hour, 
With that hard youthful heart that 

young breasts hold. 
Till the fur glances through the brake ; 
As when our savage sires wandered of 

old, 
Hungering through primal wastes. I 

see them all, 
The brisk, swift days of youth, which 

cares for nought 
Dut for the joy of living ; scarce a 

thought 
Of Love, or Knowledge, or at best 
Such labour as gives zest 
To the great joy of living. Oh, blest 

time ! 
For which each passing hour rings out 

a chime 
Of joy-bells all the year ; ay, tho' 

through days 
Of ill thou farest, and unhappy ways ; 
Or whether on the sun-struck lands 

thy feet 
Are the young savage hunter's, lithe 

and fleet. 
Turning at night-fall to thy father's 

cot, 
Bathed in the full white moonlight ; or 

dost stand 
'Mid the hushed plains of some for- 
saken land ; — 
Where'er thou art, oh, boyhood ! thou 

art free 
And fresh as the young breeze in summer 

born 
On sun-kissed hills or on the laughing 

sea, 
Or gay bird-music breathing of the 

morn, 
Or some sweet rose-bud pearled with 

early dew, 
As brief and fair as you. 



II. Girlhood. 

Or in another channel still more sweet, 

Life's current flows along, 

Ere yet the tide of passion, full and 

strong. 
Hurries the maiden's feet. 
Oh, sweet and early girlish years 
Of innocent hopes and fears ! 
Busied with fancies bright and gay. 
Which Love shall chase away, 
When, with the flutter of celestial 

wings, 
He stirs the soul forth from its depths, 

and brings 
Healing from trouble. Oh, deep well 
Of fairy fancies undefiled ! 
Oh, sweet and innocent child ! 

Now with thy doll I see thee full of care, 
Or filled already with the mother's air, 
Hushing thy child to sleep. 
And now thyself immersed in slumbers, 

deep 
Yet light, I see thee lie. 
And now the singer, lifting a clear 

voice 
In soaring hymns or carols that rejoice. 
Or busied with thy seam, or doubly fair 
For the unconscious rapture of thy look 
Lost in some simple book. 
Whate'er the colour of thy face, 
Thou art fulfilled with grace. 
Oh, little maiden, fair or brown ! 
Thine is the simple beauty which doth 

crown 
The dreams of happy fathers, who have 

past 
By Love and Passion, and have come 
To know pure joys of home ; 
And for the hurry and haste of younger 

years. 
Have taken the hearth that cheers. 



292 



THE ODE OF YOUTH. 



And the fair realm of duty, and delight 

Of innocent faces bright 

And the sweet wells of deep untroubled 

love 
A daughter's name can move. 

In every clime and age I see thee 
still, 

vSince the rude nomads wandered forth 
at will 

Upon the unbounded Aryan pastures 
wild — 

There thou wert, oh, fair child ! 

" The milker" 'twas they called thee ; 
all day long 

Tending the browsing herds with high- 
voiced song ; 

Or on some sun-warmed place 

Upon the flower-faced grass, 

Watching the old clouds pass. 

And weaving wreaths with such wild 
grace 

And sprightly girlish glee 

As Proserpine did once in sunny Sicily. 

Or maybe by some widowed hearth — 
The fairest, saddest sight on earth, 
Filled too soon with sweet care. 
And bringing back the voice and air 
Of thy dead mother ; thou art set 
An innocent virgin-mother, childlike 

yet. 
Thy baby sisters on thy loving arm 
Sleep fast, secure from harm. 
Thou hast no time for game or toy, 
Or other thought but this ; 
Finding thy full reward, thy chie Test joy, 
In thy fond father's kiss. 

Or under palms to-day, 

Thy childhood fleets away ; 

Or by the broadening shadow hid, 

Of tomb or pyramid ; 



In stainless whiteness : or maybe 
Forlorn in haunts of misery ; 
Thou keepest on thy rounded face 
Some unforgotten trace 
Of the old primal days unsung. 
Of the fresh breezes of pure morn 
When the first maiden child was born, 
And Time was young. 



Fair streams which run as yet 

Each in its separate channel from the 

snows ; 
Boyhood and girlhood ; while Life's 

banks are set 
With blooms that kiss the clear lymph 

as it flows. 
One swift and strong and deep, 
One where the lilies sleep ; — 
Fair streams, which soon some stress 

of Life and Time 
Shall bring together, 
Under new magical skies and the 

strange weather 
Of an enchanted clime. 



THE ODE OF YOUTH. 

Now upon the tree of life there rise 

Before our wondering eyes 

Two strange new flowers of varied hue. 

The tree is grown, 

The flowers are blown. 

There is nought wanting to its early 

sweetness ; 
But with a fair completeness. 
The purple bloom and white 
Fill the entranced, admiring sight. 
The tree is grown, the tree is strong ; 
Oh ! dear to art and song ! 



THE ODE OF YOUTH. 



293 



Fair time of Flowers ! within whose 

chalice sweet 
Lurks Youth with rosy feet, 
And Love with purple folded wing, 
And birdlike thoughts that sing. 

L — Early Manhood. 

And first, oh youth, I see thee with the 

plume 
Of thy thick locks upon thy forehead 

set, 
And thy frank eyes kindling with fire, 

or dim 
With soaring thoughts of heaven, or wet 
With kindly dews of pity ; the straight 

limb 
And the strong arm, and force that 

never tires ; 
The cheek and lip touched with the 

early down 
Of manhood's fullest crown ; 
The heart, which hardly thought of 

passion fires ; 
The mind, which opens like a flower in 

spring 
To all the wanton airs the seasons 

bring ;— 
The young existence self-contained no 

longer, 
But pressing outward hour by hour, 
Paired with a thirst continually stronger, 
For some supreme white flower. 
Whatever be the prize — 
Whether upon the difiicult heights of 

Thought, 
Or 'midst the white laborious dust of 

Duty, 
Or on the peaks of Power, the bloom 

be sought. 
Or in the flush and thrill of the new 

Beauty 
Born of a maiden's eyes. 



Oh, happiest age of all 

When hope is without measure 

And life a thrill of pleasure, 

And health is high and force unspent, 

Nor Disappointment yet, nor sordid 
Care, 

Nor yet .Satiety, nor the cold chill 

Which creeps upon the world-worn 
heart to kill 

All higher hope, and leaves us to 
despair ; 

Nor doubt of God or men can touch, 
but all 

The garden ground of Life is opened 
wide ; 

And lo ! on every side 

The flowers of spring are blooming, and 
the air 

Is scented, and sweet song is every- 
where. 

And young eyes read from an en- 
chanted book, 

With rapt entranced look. 

Loves legend and the Dream of days to 
be. 

And fables fair of Life's mythology. 

Through the still hours till dewy 
twilight fall. 

Whatever be the page — 

Whether of metaphysical riddles faint, 

Or the rapt visions of some ancient seer. 

The burning thoughts of saint. 

Or maxims of the sage — 

Thou comest, oh youth, with thought 
as sure. 

With mind severe and pure ; 

Thou takest afresh, with each return- 
ing year. 

The fair thin dreams, the philosophic 
lore 

Of the great names of yore — 



294 



THE ODE OF YOUTH. 



Plato the wise, Confucius, Socrates, 


Sits Fancy, disarrayed, in a deep wood ; 


The blessed Gautama — all are ihine ; 


And ah, but Youth runs swift and 


Upon thee year by year the words 


Pleasure is sweet ! 


divine 




Of our great Master, falling like the 


And sometimes, too, looking with too 


dew, 


bold eye 


Sway thee, to hate the wrong, to love 


Upon the unclouded sky, 


the true ; 


Sudden the heavens are hidden, and 


For thee the fair poetic page is spread 


the great Sun 


Of the great living and the greater 


Sinks as if day were done, 


dead ; 


And the brain reels and all the life 


For thee the glorious gains of Science lie 


grows faint, 


Stretched open to thine eye ; 


Smitten by too much light ; or a thick 


And to thy fresh and undimmed brain. 


haze 


The mysteries of Number and of Space 


Born out of sense doth overcloud 


Seem easy to explain ; 


The soul, and leaves it blind and in 


Thou lookest with clear gaze upon the 


amaze. 


long' 


And the young heart is dull and the 


Confusions of the Race, the paradox of 


young brain 


Wrong ; 


Dark till God shine again. 


And dost not fear to trace, 




With youth's strong fiery faith that 


Oh, fairest age of all ! 


knows no chill. 


Whate'er thy race or clime, 


The secret of Transgression, the prime 


To-day ten thousand cities on thee call. 


source 


Broad plain and palm-fringed isle. 


Of Good and Evil, and the unfailing 


Thine is the swelling life, the eager 


course 


glance and smile, 


Ofthe Ineffable Will. 


Oh, precious fruit of Life and Time ! 




Oh, worker of the world ! to whose 


And sometimes life, glowing with too 


young arm 


fierce fii'e, 


The brute earth yields and wrong, as 


O'er sea and land in rapid chase, 


to a charm ; 


Snatches thee with tumultuous will, 


Young seaman, soldier, student, toiler 


And careless, breathless pace. 


at the plough. 


Sometimes a darker thought 


Or loom, or forge, or mine, a kingly 


Comes on thee as a shadow of night, 


growth art thou ! 


Marring thy young life's white, 


Where'er thou art, though earthy oft 


And some new longing in the past 


and coarse. 


untaught. 


Thou bearest with thee hidden springs 


And at thy side shamefast Desire 


of force, 


Stands unreproved and guides thy bash- 


Creative power, the flower, the fruitful 


ful feet 


strife, 


To where, girt by dim depths of solitude, 


The germ, the potency of Life, 



THE ODE OF YOUTH. 



295 



Which draws all things to thee un- 
wittingly. 

The Future lies within thy loins, and 
all the Days to be 

To thee Time giveth to beget, 

The Thought that shall redeem and 
lift Man higher yet. 



II. Maidenhood. 

But lo ! another form appears 

Upon Life's glass. Oh, pure and 

white I 
Oh, delicate and bright ! 
Oh, primal growth of Time ! 
Sweet maidenhood ! that to a silvery 

chime 
Of music, and chaste fancies undefiled. 
And modest grace and mild, 
Comest, best gift of God to men, 
As fair to-day as when 
The first man, waking from his deep 
And fancy-haunted sleep, 
Found his strength spent, and at his 

side 
His fair dream glorified ; 
High-soaring note, leading harmonious 

song 
Through secular discords long. 
Oh, lily of Life's garden ! fair of hue 
And sweet of scent, watered with 

heaven's own dew ; 
Fair being, holding hidden motherhood 
And undeveloped good ; 
Implicit in thee, even as white blooms 

hold 
Their fragrant globes of gold. 
Men know no praise they can withhold 

from thee, 
Oh, sweet virginity ! 
Since Artemis first trod the youngling 

earth. 
Thou glorious and surpassing birth I 



The Vestal fires were thine, the convents 

cold 
Are thine as those of old. 
To thee, when strong sweet flowers of 

Life and Sense, 
Scent gross, we turn, oh white and 

gracious innocence ! 

Yea, still, while life flows fast and free, 
To thee we turn a world-worn eye. 
Throbbing delights are youth's and 

pulses high ; 
Vet these at last w-ill ebb, and then 

to thee 
We turn, oh fair pale lily, clothed with 

purity ! 

For sure it is indeed 

Two streams through Life's ground flow, 
and both are good — 

The one whose goal is gracious mother- 
hood ; 

The other in the cloister pale and dim 

Finding sufficient meed 

In pure observance, rite, and soaring 
hymn. 

We may not blame nor hold them wrong 

Who through their lives their liturgies 
prolong, 

Even though the prize of motherhood 
be great. 

But always thine, oh, blest estate ! 

Thine it is, under youth's, hot sun, to 
keep 

Celestial snows and pure abysses deep. 

I see thy fair expanding mind, 
A precious blossom parcel-blown. 
Not W'ith the young man's noble rage, 
But with a gentler radiance all thy own, 
Fixed now on history's fabled page. 
Now on the bard's diviner thought. 
And now by some deep music stirred, 



296 



THE ODE OF LOVE. 



Deeper than any spoken word, 
Or sweet love-story soft as southern 
wind . 

Dear flower and fair to mortal eye, 
Whatever be thy age, thy clime, thy race, 
Whether the gentle curve of thy young 

breast 
Be hidden in white lawn or stand confest 
In innocent brown nakedness and grace, 
Thou art the high and unattained prize 
Of all the generations that have been ; 
Upon Life's throne thou sittest as a 

Queen, 
And at thy gracious feet 
The ages kneel to thy eternal Truth. 
Thy pure and spotless innocence, 
And free from stain of Time and Sense, 
Thy undefiled youth. 

W^hite flower of Life's tree, 

Love like a wanton bee. 

Shall fly to thee, and from thy deep 

cold cells 
Rifle the honey. Tranquil stream, 
That from the chill heart of the un- 
trodden snow. 
So calm and clear dost flow ; 
Spring wakes beneath the gleam 
Of a new sun which swells 
A warm and rapid torrent strong, 
Soon in the sunny balmy weather. 
To break it§ banks and bear together 
Vour mingled streams along. 



THE ODE OF LOVE. 

I AM afraid 

To sing thee, oh Immortal Love, who 

know 
By what majestic voices long ago 
Thy eulogy was said. 



I do not dare 

To bring a voice which thou didst never 

train, 
To the high-soaring difficult air 
Of thy celestial strain. 
Yet how of Life to sing, and yet not 

tell of Love ; 
And since thou art the source of song, 
And all our hearts dost move, 
I will essay thy praise nor fear to do 

thee wrong. 

For see, the lovers go 

With lingering steps and slow. 

By dim arcades where sunbeams scarcely 

reach ; 
On sea-struck northern beach ; 
Or breathless tropic strand. 
By evening breezes fanned ; 
Or through the thick life-laden air 
Of some great city ; or through the 

hush 
Of summer twilights 'midst the corn ; 
When all the dying heavens glow and 

blush 
Or the young moonlight curves its 

crescent horn. 

Oh, wondrous bond that binds 

In one sweet concord separate minds, 

And from their union gives 

To the rapt gazer's eye 

A finer essence and more high, 

A young and winged God, who lives 

In purer air and seeks a loftier sky ! 

If growing cares and lower aims should 

l^anish 
All thought of heavenly hopes and 

higher things, 
While we can mount upon thy soaring 

wings 
They shall not wholly vanish. 



THE ODE OF LOVE. 



297 



Thou art the immortal part of man, the 

soul, 
Which, scorning earth's control, 
Lifts us from selfish thought and grovel- 
ling gains. 
Thou always, whilst thy power remains, 
Canst pierce the dull dead weight of 

cloud. 
By which our thought is bowed, 
And raise our clear and cleansed eyes 
To the eternal skies. 

No sting of sense it is 

That gives thee wing and lifts thee up 

to heaven. 
Too high art thou for this ; 
Ethereal, pure, free from earth's grosser 

leaven. 
If ought of sense be thine,'tis but the air, 
Whose weight can lift thee up to soar, 
Which can thy heavenward pinions bear 
From brute earth more and more 
Up to the fount of Power and Love 
Whence all things move. 

And see, the lovers go 

With lingering steps and slow. 

Over all the world together, all in all. 

Over all the world ! Great empires fall ; 

The onward march of Man seems spent ; 

The nations rot in dull content ; 

The blight of war, a bitter flood, 

From continent to continent, 

Surges in waves of blood ; 

The light of knowledge sinks, the fire 

of thought burns low ; 
There seems scant thought of God ; but 

yet 
One power there is men ne'er forget. 
And still through every land beneath 

the skies, 
Rapt, careless, looking in each other's 

eyes. 



With lingering steps and slow, 
The lovers go. 

A pillar of light 

Goes evermore before their dazzled eyes. 

Purple and golden-bright. 

Youth's vast horizons spread and the 

unbounded skies. 
Oh blessed dream which for awhile dost 

hide 
The sorrows of the world and leave life 

glorified. 
Oh blessed light that risest still, 
Young eyes and souls to fill ! 

Linked arms and hearts aglow ; 
Wherever man is more than brute, 
To this self-sacrifice our natures grow. 
Rapt each in each they go, and mute, 
Listening to the sweet song 
Which Love, with mystic accents, all 

day long 
Sings to them, like a hidden bird. 
Sweeter than e'er was seen or heard, 
Which from life's thick-leaved tree 
Sings sadly, merrily, 
A strange, mixed song, a changeful 

strain, 
Which rises now to joy and jollity. 
Now seemeth to complain ; 
But with a sweeter music far than is 
Of earthborn melodies. 

He sees within her eyes 

That which his nature needs to be com- 
plete — 

The grace, the pureness, the diviner sweet , 

Which to rude souls and strong our Life 
denies ; 

The vision of his nightly dream ; 

More pure than e'er did seem 

The Nymphs of old, by wood, or hill, 
or stream. 



I 



298 



THE ODE OF PERFECT YEARS. 



She views in him the strong 

Deep note which adds the fuhiess to 

life's song ; 
High aims and thoughts that glow 
She does not dream, she cannot know 
What turbid forces rude and wild 
Sully his youth's tumultuous flow ; 
She, full of virgin fancies, pale and mild. 

They draw to each other, they flow to 

the deep as one, 
Together thro' all lands beneath the sun, 
In twin attempered streams, set side by 

side. 
So near that scarce a footpace may divide 
Their separate depths, and this maybe 

is best ; 
Or maybe in each other lost, 
In calm or tempest-tost. 
One broad full river they roll on to the 

sea, 
One full accordant harmony. 
High song and deep, one perfect note ; 
Or maybe troublous as the wintry wave. 
Or some hoarse accent of a tuneless 

throat. 
They know no longer peace or rest, 
Ill-mated, hapless, self-opprest, 
Tjll silent in the grave. 

Yet draw together, draw together still. 
Fair souls and free, fair souls and young ! 
Still shall thy praise. Immortal T.ove, 

be sung ! 
Thou art the Spirit which doth animate ; 
The Universal Will, 
Which speeds the Race upon the ways 

of Fate ; 
Which speeds it onwards, gaining 

strength 
Little by little, line on line, 
Till, as our hope i^, risen at length 



To plenitude Divine, 

It comes to what high issue rare 

The Future shall prepare. 



THE ODE OF PERFECT 
YEARS. 

Now flower and perfect fruit 

Together dress the tree, 

High midsummer has come, midsum- 
mer mute 

Of song, but rich to scent and sight. 

The sun is high in heaven, the skies 
are bright 

And full of blessedness. 

High hope and wild endeavour 

Have fled or sunk for ever ; 

Only the swifter seasons onward press. 

And every day that goes 

Is a full-scented, full-blown garden rose, 

Orbed, complete. 

And every hour brings its own burden 
sweet 

Of daily duty, precious care : 

Wherefrom the visible landscape calm 
and clear 

Shows finer far, and the high heaven 
more near, 

Than ever morning skies of sunrise 
were. 

I miss the unbounded hope of old, 

The freshness and the glow of youth ; 

I miss the fever and the fret, 

The luminous haze of gold. 

I see a mind clearer and calmer yet, 

A more unselfish love, a more unclouded 

truth ; 
Such gain I take, and this 
More gracious shows and fair than that 

I miss. 



THE ODE OF PERFECT YEARS. 



299 



I. Fatherhood. 

Oh, father ! sitting at thy hearth, 

With sunny heads around and lisping 
talk, 

For whom the world without and all 
the earth 

Is nought to this ; and to the strong 
deep love 

Which, mixed with pity, all thy soul 
doth move. 

Strong worl«er, watching o'er the tot- 
tering walk 

And feeble limbs and growing thought 
and brain, 

Rejoicing in each new-found gain 

As the first sire, alone in Paradise ; 

And patient and content to work all 
day. 

If with the eve returning from thy toil 

Thou canst put off the sad world's stain 
and soil. 

And bending downward to thy chil- 
dren's eyes, 

Rise cleansed and pure as they. 

I know not if life holds a more divine 

Or fairer lot than thine. 

Strong, patient worker, king of those 
who can 

To its high goal of Things to be, 

Its goal of Fate and Mystery, 

Lead forth the race of Man ! 

Thy way is ofttimes hard, 

And toilsome oft thy feet ; 

Thine are the days of anxious care, 

When the spent brain reels, or the 

strong arm tires ; 
Yet all the ease and charm of days that 

were, 
And Pleasure paling all her fading fires, 
Allure no more, but the tired hunter 



Or now the worker with the furrowed 

brow 
On frozen wastes or sun-struck thou 

dost show ; 
By mart, or loom, or mine, or bending 

down 
Chained to thy desk within the stifling 

town, 
Thou toilest daily that thy brood may 

live. 
Cares are thine, cares, and the unselfish 

mind 
Which spends itself for others and can 

find 
How blest it is without return to give. ■ 
Whate'er thy race or speech, thou art 

the same ; 
Before thy eyes Duty, a constant flame, 
Shines always steadfast with unchang- 
ing light. 
Through dark days and through bright. 

Sometimes, by too great misery bowed 

down, 
Or poison-draughts brought lower than 

the beast. 
Thou comest to hate the hollow eyes 

around. 
Dreading thy cares increased, 
And dost despise thy own, 
And canst thy dead heart steel against 

their cries, 
And mark unmoved the hunger in their 

eyes ; 
Or sometimes, filled with love, art 

powerless to aid. 
Oh, misery, to make our souls afraid ! 

Or if a happier lot 

Await thee, yet by precious wells of 

tears 
Thy life's road goes, vain hopes and 

anxious fears. 



300 



THE ODE OF PERFECT YEARS. 



Thine 'tis, perchance, to mark the 

grassy mound 
"Which keeps, within the chiuehyard's 

narrow ground, 
Thy darling who is not. 
Hopes sunk in tears, tears that ascend 

to hope ; 
Such is thy horoscope. 
Oh father, standing by the little grave, 
And impotent to save ! 

Thy heart is moved with pity 

For thy young growing lives, who needs 

must come 
To leave the safe and sacred walls of 

home ; 
For whose young souls, Life, like a 

cruel city, 
Spreads out her nets of sin. 
Thou knowest well of old 
The strong allurements which they 

scarce may shun. 
The subtle wiles, the innocent lives 

undone. 
The tide of passion, scorning all con- 
trol. 
And thou art filled with an immense 

despair, 
Wherefrom thy heart beats slow, thy 

eyes grow dim, 
As when of yore thou heardst them 

lisp a hymn 
With early childish lips : thou canst 

not bear 
To think of that young whiteness soiled 

and foul, 
Or that thick darkness blotting the 

young soul. 

Yet from thy grief and pain 
Comes ofttimes greater gain 
Than all thy loss. 
Thou knowest what it is to grieve. 



And from the burden of thy cross 
Thou comest to believe. 
Thou who hast lost and yet dost love, 
Thou, too, a Father hast in some dim 

sphere above, 
Who doth regard thy joys, thy miseries, 
Thy petty doubts of Him, thy feeble 

learning, 
Thy faults, thy pains, thy childish doubt 

and yearning, 
Even as thou dost these. 



II. Motherhood. 

But here is one who over all the earth 

Is worshipped and is blest, 

Who doth rejoice from holier springs of 

mirth. 
And sorrow from a deeper fount of 

tears, 
On whose sweet bosom is our earliest 

rest, 
Whose tender voice that cheers 
Is our first memory, which still doth 

last 
Thro' all our later past — 
The love of love or child, the world- 
worn strife, 
The turmoil and the triumphs of a 

life— 
The sweet maid - mother, pure and 

mild, 
The deep love undefiled. 

Thou art the universal praise 

Of every human heart, the secret shrine 

Where seer and savage keep a dream 

divine 
Through growing and declining days ; 
And but for thee 

And thy unselfish love, thy sacrifice, 
W^hich brings heaven daily nearer to 

our eyes, 



THE ODE OF PERFECT YEARS. 



501 



Men whom the rude world stains, men 


What strong instinctive thrill 


chilled by doubt, 


The mother's being doth fill, 


Would find no ray of Deity 


And raises it from miry common ways, 


To fire a Faiih gone out. 


Up to such heights of love. 




We cannot tell what blessed forces 


Our life from a twofold root 


move, 


Springs upwards to the sky, 


And so transform the careless girlish 


One, surface only, shared with tree and 


heart 


brute. 


To bear so high a part. 


And one, as deep and strong as heaven 


We cannot tell ; we can but praise. 


is high. 




Spirit and sense, 


Fair motheihood, by every childish 


Each bears its part and dwells in inno- 


tongue 


cence 


Thy eulogy is sung. 


Yet only grown together can they bear 


In every passing age 


The one consummate fruit. 


The theme of seer and sage : 


The flower is good, the flower is fair. 


The painters saw thee in a life-long 


But holds no lasting sweetness in its 


dream ; 


petals thin. 


The painters who have left a world 


No seed of life within. 


more fair 


But the ripe fruit within its orbed gold 


Than ever days of nymph and goddess 


Doth hidden secrets hold ; 


were — 


Within its honied wells set safe and 


Blest company, who now for centuries 


deep. 


Have fixed the virgin mother for our 


The Future lies asleep. 


eyes— 


Of sharaefastness our being is born, 


The painters saw thee sitting brown or 


Of shamefastness and scorn. 


fair. 




Under the Tuscan vines or colder 


Oh, wonder, that so high dost soar 1 


Northern air ; 


Oh, vision, blest for evermore ! 


They saw pure love transform thy 


With every throe of birth 


peasant gaze ; 


Two glorious Presences make glad the 


They saw thy reverent eyes, thy young 


earth 


amaze 


The stainless mother and the Eternal 


And left thee Queen of Heaven, wearing 


Child. 


a crown 


Of the heart comes love, of the heart 


Of glory; and abased at thy sweet 


and not the brain ; 


breast. 


To heights where Thought comes not 


Spurning his robes of kingship down. 


can Love attain : 


The God-child laid at rest. 


We cannot tell at all, we may not 




know. 


They found thee, and they fixed thee 


How to such stature higli our lower 


for our eyes ; 


natures grow ; 


But every day that goes 



302 



THE ODE OF PERFECT YEARS. 



Bafore the gazer new Madonnas rise. 
What matter if the cheek show not the 

rose, 
Nor look divine is there nor queenly 

grace ? 
The mother's glory lights the homely 

face. 
In every land beneath the circling sun 
Thy praise is never done. 
Whatever men may doubt, they put 

their trust in thee ; 
Rude souls and coarse, to whom 

virginity 
Seems a dead thing and cold. 
So always was it from the days of old ; 
So shall it be while yet our race doth 

last; 
Though truth be sought no more and 

faith be past, 
Still, till all hope of heaven be dead, 
Thy praises shall be said. 

Aye, thou art ours, or wert, ere yet 

The loss we ne'er forget. 

The loss which comes to all who reach 

life's middle way 
We see thee by the childish bed 
Sit patient all night long. 
To cool the parching lips or throbbing 

head ; 
We hear thee still with simple song 
Or sweet hymn lull the wakeful eyes 

to sleep ; 
Through every turning of life's 

chequered page, 
Joying with those who joy, weeping 

with those who weep. 
Oh, sainted love ! oh,' precious 

sacrifice ! 
Oh, heaven-lighted eyes ! 
Best dream of early youth, best memory 

of age ! 



III. Labour. 

They do the Maker wrong 

Who with the closing days of youth 

Shut fast the gate of Song; 

Nor ever shall I hold it truth, 

With those v/ho feign to tell the tale of 

life. 
That only love is worth, the love that 

binds 
A youth and maid, nor care at all 
For the long summer ere the fruit shall 

fall. 
And deem unlit for song the glorious 

strife, 
The joy of toil and thought, the clash 

of vigorous minds, 
When knowledge flies before and we 

pursue. 
And who the Fair once followed, 

follow now the True. 

Ah, full fair life ! if something we have 

lost. 
If never more again 
We feel the ancient joy, the former pain, 
If no more passion-tost 
Upon the tides of life we hurry by, 
The white waves laughing as we plunge 

along. 
Nor watch the light clouds drift along 

the sky. 
While the glad South snatches us swift 

and strong 
To some blest isle beyond the purple 

wave, 
Where Love is Queen and Mirth, nor 

Prudence grave 
Nor Wisdom frowns, but to be glad is all, 
From jocund morn till dewy evening 

fall ; 
Oh, if that sky is dark — those wiqds 

are still — 



THE ODE OF PERFECT YEARS. 



303 



Another day has risen : again from the 


I see the toilers with the awaking morn. 


East 


Ere yet the day is born. 


Our treasure is increased ; 


Go forth to labour over all the earth. 


And as the orient Lord begins to grow, 


In northern darkness, 'midst the wintry 


New airs begin to blow ; 


ram, 


And on the cahn majestic tide, 


The great bell clangs thro' the smoke - 


Our full-sailed galleon comes to glide, 


laden air ; 


Love, with its little skiff, has gone, 


And ere light comes the workers 


But Life's great bark sails on. 


gather there, 




While the great engines throb, the 


Toil is the law of life, and its best 


swift wheels turn. 


fruit : 


And the long, sickly gaslights Hare and 


This from the uncaring brute 


burn ; 


Divides ; — this and the prescient mind 


I hear the slow winch creak above the 


whose store 


pit. 


Grows daily more and more. 


While the black workers, who have 


Toil is the mother of wealth, 


toiled all night, 


The nurse of health ; 


Rise, dazed, to rest and light ; 


Toil 'tis that gives the zest 


I see the fisher on the waking sea ; 


To well-earned rest ; 


The great ship, full- manned, heaving 


The law of life laid broad and deep 


silently 


As are the fixed foundations of the sea, 


Across the foam ; reapers in yellow 


The medicine of grief, the remedy, 


corn ; 


Wherefrom Life giveth his beloved 


The frosty shepherd in the early morn ; 


sleep. 


The naked Avorker bent among the 
cane 


Oh, labour truly blest ! 


Or cotton; the vinedresser, ;lean and 


Thou rulest all the race ; 


brown ; 


Over all the toiling earth 1 see thy 


The thousand labours of the busy town ; 


gracious face 


The myriad trades which in each clime 


Stand forth confest. 


and race 


Wherever thou art least. 


Build up man's dwelling-place ; 


In those fair lands beneath the tropic 


I see the countless toiling multitude ; 


blaze, 


And all I see is good. 


The slothful savage, likened to the 




beast. 


But to ends nobler still 


Drags on his soulless length of days ; 


The nobler workers of the world are 


Where most thou art. 


bent. 


Man rises upward to a loftier height. 


It is not best in an inglorious ease 


And views the earth and heaven with 


To sink and dull content. 


clearer sight, 


When wild revolts and hopeless 


And holds a cleaner heart. 


miseries 




The unquiet nations fill ; 



304 



THE ODE OF PERFECT YEARS. 



It is not best to rot 

In dull observance, while the bitter cry 

Of Aveak and friendless sufferers rends 

the sky, 
Wailing their hopeless lot ; 
Or rest in coward fear on former gain, 
Making old joys supply the present 

pain.. 

Nay, best it is indeed 

To spend ourselves upon the general 

good ; 
And, oft misunderstood, 
To strive to lift the knees and limbs 

that bleed ; — 
This is the best, the fullest meed. 
Let ignorance assail or hatred sneer ; 
Who loves his race he shall not fear ; 
He suffers not for long, 
Who doth his soul possess in loving, 

and grows strong. 

Oh, student ! far into the night 
>"rom youth to age 
Bent low upon the blinding page, 
Content to catch some gleam of light ; 
Art thou not happy, though the world 

pass by ? — 
Happy though Honours seek thee not, 

nor Fame, 
And no man knows thy name ? — 
Happy in that blest company of old 
Whose names are writ in characters of 

gold 
Upon the rocks of Time, the glorious 

band 
Who on the shining mountains stand, 
Thinker and jurist, bard or seer, 
Whatever name is brightest and most 

dear ? 

Or thou with docile hand, 
Obedient to the visionary eye, 



Who 'midst art's precious work dost 

choose to stand 
Amid the great ones of the days gone 

by. 
Oh, blest and glorious lot, always to be 
With dreams of beauty compassed 

round about ! 
The godlike mother and the child 

divine, 
Or land or sea or sky, in calm or 

storm. 
Nature's sincerest verities of form- 
To see from canvas or from marble 

shine, 
Little by little orbing gradually. 
Some trace of hidden Godhead gleam- 
ing out ! 

Or who, from heart and brain inspired, 

create. 
Defying time, defying fate, 
Some deathless theme and high, 
Some verse which cannot die, 
vSome lesson which shall still be said 
Altho' their tongue be lost and dead ; 
Or who, in daily labour's trivial round, 
Their fitting work have found : 
Or who on high, guiding the car of 

State, 
Are set, a people's envy anei their pride, 
Who, spurning rank and ease and 

wealth. 
And setting pleasure aside and health, 
And meeting contumely oft and hate. 
Have lived laborious lives and all too 

early died. 

Or shall I silence keep 

Of you, oh ministering women fair, 

Who, while the world lies sunk in care- 
less sleep. 

Still for the love of God and man can 
bear 



THE ODE OF PERFECT YEARS. 



305 



To watch by alien sick-beds, and to 
guard 

With Httle hope and scant reward, 

Midst misery and foul infected air. 

The friendless and the dying ? Shall I 
dare 

To sing of labour's meed, nor hold you 
dear ? 

Dear souls, your joys are great, and yet 
not wholly here ; 

In heaven they blossom best and grow 
complete, 

And beautiful upon the eternal moun- 
tains are your feet. 

Ay, labour, thou art blest. 
From all the earth, thy voice, a con- 
stant prayer. 
Soars upward day and night : 
A voice of aspiration after right ; 
A voice of effort yearning for its rest ; 
A voice of high hope conquering despair ! 

IV. Rest. 

There is a joy in rest ; 

There is a joy to cease and to be still. 

This is the remedy of all the best. 

To cure the pain of too laborious will. 

Ah ! it is sweet to lie reclined. 

Reaping the fallow mind, j 

When all the sweat and drouxh of day 

is done. 
And a cool breeze breathes from the 

setting sun. 

The toiler sits before his cottage door, 

Set with musk-roses round, and eglan- 
tine, 

In dewy, scented, twilight-glooms 
divine, 

When all the trouble of the week is 
o'er, 



And sabbath rest comes with the even- 
ing sun : 

The joyous shouts come up from pool 
or green ; 

Round the white chestnut-spikes the 
beetles hum ; 

And down the hawthorn-haunted by- 
ways come 

The loitering lovers, hardly seen 

Till springs aloft the clear, large moon 

Of pleasant June. 

Or by the palm- thatched hut at shut of eve, 
The dusky toilers lie, when the red sun 
Is sinking or has gone. 
A cool wind rises landward from the sea ; 
The lire-flies glance like silver in the 

palm ; 
On the fringed shore the thundering 

rollers heave ; 
And all the simple souls are full of glee, 
And the fair earth of calm. 

i Or on the hot and trackless sand. 
In the sweet dying day, 
Beyond the unknown monuments of the 

dead, 
The last muezzin calls, the prayers are 

said, 
And turbaned faces stern relax a while 
To some unwonted smile, 
W^atching the large-eyed children at 

their play. 

Or maybe busy brains, which day by day 

Life's struggle frets away, 

Weary with fierce pursuit of fame or 

wealth. 
And prizing only health ; 
Over the joyous wave in some swift boat, 
White-winged, delight to float 
From land to land upon the tideless sea ; 
Borne careless still and free 

X 



3o6 



THE ODE OF PERFECT YEARS. 



By hoary cape and gleaming southern 
town, 

And many an islet clothed with palm 
and vine, 

And on the wine-dark sea-depths look- 
ing down, 

High based on wave-worn fronts, the 
marble shrine ; 

Or see the white town flush with dying 
day, 

And the red mountain fire the glimmer- 
ing bay. 

Or maybe on the icy hill they creep 

Above the pines, across the frozen sea, 

Whose blue abysses bare the unfathomed 
deep ; 

Each to the other bound, and silently. 

Fearful lest some chance step or spoken 
word, 

The avalanche trembling downward 
may have stirred ; 

And up the giddy height 

Little by little, gaining slow, 

They gradually go, 

Till with hard toil of knee and hand. 

On the white summit panting but con- 
tent, 

With full hearts throbbing high and 
forces spent, 

At last the climbers stand ; 

For this of old is sure, 

That changeof toil is toil'ssufficientcure. 

Or by the lovely classic shore. 

The traveller sees with wondering eyes 

The treasure-house of art ; the store 

Of gracious memories 

Left by some cunning vanished hand, 

At whose supreme command 

The spirit of beauty rose and did appear : 

The angel with the lily ; the poor maid, 

Submissive, yet afraid ; 



The fair Madonnas mild ; 

The deep ineffable Child ; 

The sweet boy-angels singing high and 
clear ; 

The lady with the mystic smile ; 

The kneeling Magi from the fabled East ; 

The blessed Presence at the sacred feast ; 

And many a virgin martyr sweet, 

And many a youthful saint, 

Gazing from heavenly eyes and free of 
guile ; 

Who, when the tortured life began to 
faint, 

Looking in agony above, 

vSaw the heavens opened, and the Para- 
clete 

Descending like a dove. 

Or maybe under secular trees 

Old when his ancestors were young, 

The statesman, in the golden autumn, 

sees 
New glories for the eloquent tongue. 
New triumphs gained against the banded 

might 
Of selfishness and fear, new struggles 

for the right ; 
And in the falling evening and the sad 
Short light of waning days, 
Illumes his soul with subtle inward rays, 
And grows sedately glad. 

These thy refreshments are, oh blest 

And necessary Rest ! 

Peaceful delights, which bear not soil 

and fret 
As do the victories of toil, and yet 
Bear their own fruit exceeding fair : 
Renewal of the labouring mind, 
New hopes, new dawns, and carking 

care 
A black night left l)ehind. 



THE ODE OF GOOD. 



307 



77/^ ODE OF GOOD. 

Eternal Spring, and Source 

Of happiness and weal ! 

Indwelling and unfailing Force ! 

Who dost Thyself reveal 

In every jocund day, and restful night ; 

In every dawn serenely bright ; 

In every tide of yearning which doth roll, 

Heavenward, some growing soul ! 

What were life save for Thee 

But pain and misery — 

To have no more longing, but to be 

Below the brute, below the tree, 

Below the little stone, or speck of dust. 

Which are themselves, and are made 

just, 
Conforming to the law which bade them 

grow. 
Not dreaming dreams of heaven in their 

estate so low ! 

The calm brutes live and are. 

Tranquil and unafraid, 

Keeping their nature only ; the faint 

star 
Pursues its orbit always though of Thee 
It knows not, yet its vast periphery 
Is ordered by Thy hand ; by Thee were 

laid 
The fixed foundations of the unfathomed 

sea ; — 
All these obey Thee, though they may 

not know 
What law it is that holds them. Man 

alone 
Sees Thee, and knowing Thee, averts 

his face. 
And yet is higher than all for his disgrace. 
Which were impossil^le to brute, or tree, 

or stone. 



How shall a finite voice 

Praise Thee who art too high for any 
praise, 

Great Scheme, that by eternal, perfect 
ways 

Farest and dost rejoice ! 

Thou wert before Life was, or III. 

Thou rulest all things still ; 

The Governanceand Regimen are Thine, 

Oh Plenitude divine ! 

Of all the countless orbs that roll 

Through all Thy infinite space. 

We are through Thee alone, each in its 
place, 

Organic, Inorganic, great and small ; 

Thou dost inspire and keep us all ; — 

Earth, sky, and sea ; herb, tree, insect, 
and brute ; 

All Thy created excellences mute. 

To Man of large discourse, and the un- 
dying soul. 

We know not by what Name our 

tongues shall call 
Thee or Thy Essence, nor can Thought 

as yet 
Gain those ineffable heights where Thou 

art set, 
As from a watch-tower guarding all. 
Thou girdest Thyself round with mys- 
tery, 
As Thy great sun behind an embattled 

cloud, 
Or some wrapt summit, never seen ; 
Yet Thy veiled presence cheers us on 

our road. 
With eyes bent down too much on earth 

and bowed. 
We toil and do forget 
All but our daily labour and its load j 
Yet art Thou there the while, felt yet 

unseen, 



3o8 THE ODE 


OF EVIL. 


Oh universal Good, and Thy great Will 


Spring of the soul, that dost remove 


Directs our footsteps still — 


Winter with rays of love. 


Directs them, though they come to stray 


And dost dispel of Thy far-working 


From Thy appointed perfect way ; 


might 


Lights them, though for a while they 


The clouds of 111 and Night, 


wander far. 


For every soul which cometh to the 


Led by some feeble baleful star, 


earth ; 


Which can allure them when the blind- 


That beamest on us at our birth. 


ing fold 


And paling somewhat in life's grosser 


Of mist is on the hill side, and the cold 


day, 


Clouds which make green our lives, 


Lightest, a pillar of fire, our evening 


descending, hide 


^^-ay ; 


Death's steeps on every side. 


What matter by what Name 




We call Thee?— still art Thou the 


We know not what Thou art — 


same, 


Whether the Word of some all-perfect 


God call we Thee, or Good, — stil) 


W^iU 


through the strife 


Inborn and nourished in each human 


Unchangeable alone, of all our change- 


heart, 


ful life, 


Some hidden and mysterious good, 


With awe-struck souls we seek Thee, we 


Obeyed, not understood ; 


adore 


Or whether the harmonious note 


Thy greatness ever more and more, 


Of some world-symphony divine, 


We turn to Thee with worship, till at 


To which the perfect Scheme of things, 


last. 


Ever advancing perfectly 


Our journey well-nigh past, 


To high fulfilment, sings. 


When now our day of Life draws to its 


We know not what Thou art, and yet 


end, 


we love ; 


Looking, with less of awe and more of 


We know not where Thou dwell'st, yet 


love, 


still above 


To Thy high throne above, 


We turn our eyes to Thee, knowing 


We see no dazzling brightness as of old, 


Thou wilt take 


No kingly splendours cold. 


Our yearnings and wilt treasure them. 


But the sweet Presence of a heavenly 


and make 


Friend. 


Our little lives fulfil themselves and 




Thee: 




And in this trust we bear to be. 


THE ODE OF E VIL. 


Oh Light so white and pure, 


Oh, who shall sing of Life and not of 


Oft clouded and yet sure ! 


111? 


Oh inner Radiance of the heart. 


The essence of our will 


That drawest all men, whatsoe'er Thou 


Is fullest liberty to stray. 


art : 


From out the green and Vilessed way, 



THE ODE OF EVIL. 



309 



Amid the desert wastes of drought and 

death. 
This is the power that makes us free, 
This of our Being is the penalty ; 
And maybe the Eternal Will, 
Clothing itself with form to bid Creation 

be, 
Took to itself some boundary, and 

awhile, 
Self-limited, made vile 
And subjected to Law the Majesty 
Which all the Universe of Space did fill. 

Evil is Life, 

The conflict of great laws pervading 

space ; 
Evil is strife. 
Which keeps the creature in its ordered 

place. 
If any hand divine should e'er with- 
draw 
The fixed coercive potency of Law, j 
Surely the Universe of things would fade 
And cease and be unmade. 
Where Law is, there is Good, 
And freedom to obey or to transgress ; ; 
Else 'twere no Law, but, weaker far j 

and less, 
If one created soul might not the thing - 
it would. i 

I 
I 
Young lives spring up and fade. 
Wither and are opprest, 
Toil takes the world, and pain, 
And all the things that God has made 
Travail and groan and fain would be at 

rest, 
And Wrong prevails again. 
And we — we lift a hopeless eye 
Up to the infinite sky, 
Mourning the 111 that is, and shall be 

yet. 
Weak creatures who fortret 



I The very law and root of Life, 

I That it is sown in pain and nursed in 

' woe and strife. 

' The evil blight of war 

Torments the race from age to age, 
I And man slays man through all the 

years that are, 
And savage lust and brutal rage 
Deform this glorious heritage of earth. 
We shudder and grow faint, 
j Knowing the dim fair dreams of seer 

and saint 
Show thin and little worth. 
The young life, rising, sinks in sloughs 

of sense. 
And wanders and is lost. 
Alas ! for days of young-eyed innocence. 
Alas ! for the calm hours ere, passion- 

crost. 
The young soul grew, a ^^hite flower 

sweet and pure. 
Yet not the less 'tis sure 
That not in tranquil zones of endless 

calm 
Grows best the victor's palm. 
But blown by circling storms which 

blot the sky. 
Nor fitting were it to the eye 
Always to look upon a cloudless sun, — 
Grown blind with too much light before 

the journey done. 

The victories of Right 

Are born of strife. 

There were no Day were there no 

Night, 
Nor, without dying, Life. 
There only doth Right triumph, where 

the Wrong 
Is mightiest and most strong ; 
There were no Good, indeed, were there 

no 111. 



310 



THE ODE OF AGE. 



And M'hen the final victory shall come, 
Burst forth, oh Awful Sun, and draw- 
Creation home. 

Not within Time or Space 

Lines drawn in opposite ways grow 

one, 
But in some Infinite place 
Before the Eternal throne ; 
There, ways to-day divergent, Right 

and Wrong, 
Approach the nearer that they grow 

more long. 
There at the Eternal feet, 
Fused, joined, and grown complete, 
The circle rounds itself, the enclosing 

wall 
Of the Universe sinks down, and God 

is all in all ! 



THE ODE OF AGE. 

There is a sweetness in autumnal 

days, 
Which many a lip doth praise ; 
When the earth, tired a little and grown 

mute 
Of.song, and having borne its fruit, 
Rests for a little space ere winter come. 
It is not sad to turn the face towards 

home. 
Even though it shows the journey 

nearly done ; 
It is not sad to mark the westering 

sun, 
Even though we know the imminent 

night doth come. 
Silence there is, indeed, for song, 
Twilight for noon ; 
But for the steadfast soul and strong 
Life's autumn is as June. 



As June itself, but clearer, calmer far ; 
Mere come no passion-gusts to mar, 
No thunder-clouds or rains to beat 
To earth the blossoms and the wheat. 
No high tumultuous noise 
Of youth's self-seeking joys, 
But a cold radiance white 
As the moon shining on a frosty night. 

To-morrow is as yesterday, scant 

change, 
Little of new^ or strange. 
No glamour of false hope to daze, 
Nor glory to amaze. 
Even the old passionate love of love or 

child 
A temperate affection mild. 
And ever the recurring thought 
Returning, though unsought : 
How strange the Scheme of Things ! 

how brief a span 
The little life of man ! 
And ever as we mark them, fleeter and 

more fleet. 
The days and months and years, gliding 

with winged feet. 

And ever as the hair grows grey. 

And the eyes dim. 

And the lithe form which toiled the 

live-long day, 
The stalwart limb, 
Begin to stiffen and grow slow, 
A higher joy we know : 
To spend the remnant of the waning 

year. 
Ere comes the deadly chill. 
In works of mercy, and to cheer 
The feet which toil against life's rugged 

hill ; 
To have known the trouble and the fret. 
To have known it, and to cease 



THE ODE OF AGE. 



311 



In a pervading peace, 

Too calm to suffer pain, too living to 

forget, 
And reaching down a succouring hand 
To where the sufferers are, 
To lift them to the tranquil heights afar, 
Whereon Time's conquerors stand. 

And when the fruitful hours are done. 
How sweet at set of sun 
To gather up the fair laborious day ! — 
To have struck some blow for right 
With tongue or pen ; 
To have smoothed the path to light 
For wandering men ; 
To have chased some fiend of 111 away ; 
A little backward to. have thrust 
The instant powers of Drink and Lust, 
To have borne down gaunt Despair, 
To have dealt a blow at Care ! 
How sweet to light again the glow 
Of hotter fires than youth's, tho' all the 
blood runs slow ! 

Oh ! is there any joy, 

Of all that come to girl or boy 

Or manhood's calmer weal and ease, 

To vie with these? 

Here is some fitting profit day by day. 

Which nought can render less ; 

Some glorious gain Fate cannot take 
away, 

Nor Time depress. 

Oh, brother, fainting on your road ! 

Poor sister, whom the righteous shun ! 

There comes for you, ere life and 

strength be done. 
An arm to bear your load. 
A feeble body, maybe bent, and old. 
But bearing 'midst the chills of age 
A deeper glow than youth's ; a nobler 

rage ; 
A calm heart yet not cold. 



A man or woman, weak perhaps, and 

spent, 
To whom pursuit of gold or fame 
Is as a fire grown cold, an empty name, 
Whom thoughts of Love no more allure, 
Who in a self-made nunnery dwell, 
A cloistered calm and pure, 
A beatific peace greater than tongue can 

tell. 

And sweet it is to take, 

With something of the eager haste of 

youth. 
Some fainter glimpse of Truth 
For its own sake ; 
To observe the ways of bee, or plant, 

or bird ; 
To trace in Nature the ineffable Word, 
Which by the gradual wear of secular 

time. 
Has worked its work sublime ; 
To have touched, with strenuous grop- 

ings dim, 
Nature's extremest outward rim ; 
To have found some weed or shell un- 
known before ; 
To advance Thought's infinite march a 

footpace more ; 
To make or to declare laws just and 

sage ; 
These are the joys of Age. 

Or by the evening hearth, in the old 

chair. 
With children's children at our knees, 
So like, yet so unlike the little ones of 

old- 
Some little lad with curls of gold, 
Some little maid demurely fair. 
To sit, girt round with ease, 
And feel how sweet it is to live. 
Careless what fate may gr\^e ; 
To think, with gentle yearning mind, 



312 



THE ODE OF DECLINE. 



Of dear souls who have crossed the In- 
finite Sea ; 
To muse with cheerful hope of what 

shall be 
For those we leave behind 
When the night comes which knows no 

earthly morn ; 
Vet mingled with the young in hopes 

and fears, 
And bringing from the treasure-house 

of years 
Some fair-set counsel long-time worn ; 
To let the riper days of life, 
The tumult and the strife. 
Go by, and in their stead 
Dwell with the living past, so living, 

yet so dead : 
The mother's kiss upon the sleeper's 

brow. 
The little fish caught from the brook. 
The dead child-sister's gentle voice and 

look, 
The school-days and the father's parting 

hand ; 
The days so far removed, yet oh ! so 

near, 
So full of precious memories dear ; 
The wonder of flying Time, so hard to 

understand ! 

Not in clear eye or ear 

Dwells our chief profit here. 

We are not as the brutes, who fade and 

make no sign ; 
We are sustained w^here'er we go, 
In happiness and woe, 
By some indwelling faculty divine. 
Which lifts us from the deep 
Of failing senses dim, and duller brain, 
And wafts us back to youth again ; 
And as a vision fair dividing sleep. 
Pierces the vasts behind, the voids 

before, 



And opens to us an invisible gate. 
And sets our winged footsteps, scorninj 

Time and Fate, 
At the celestial door. 



THE ODE OF DECLINE, 

With forces well-nigh spent, 

Uneasy or in pain, 

Or brought to childish weakness once 
again. 

With bodies shrunk and bent. 

We come, if Fate so will, to cold de- 
crepit age. 

The book of Life lies open at its latest 
page. 

Only four score of summers, and four 
score 

Of winters, nothing more, 

And then 'tis done. 

We have spent our fruitful days be- 
neath the sun ; 

We come to a cold season and a bare, 

Where little is sweet or fair. 

We, who a few brief years ago, 

Would passionately go 

Across the fields of life to meet the 
morn. 

We are content, content and not for- 
lorn. 

To lie upon our beds, and watch the Day 

Which kissed the Eastern peaks, grow 
gradually grey. 

Great Heaven, that Thou hast made 

our lives so brief 
And swiftly spent ! 

We toil our little day and are content, 
Though Time, the thief, 
Stands at our side, and smiles his mystic 

smile. 



THE ODE OF DECLINE. 



313 



We joy a little, we grieve a little while ; 
We gain some little glimpse of Thy 

great laws, 
Rolling in thunder through the voids 

of space ; 
We gain to look a moment on Thy 

face, 
Eternal Source and Cause ! 
And then, the night descending as a 

cloud, 
We walk with aspect bowed, 
And turn to earth and see our Life 

grow dark. 
Was it for this the fiery spark 
Of Thy Eternal Self, sown on the vast 
And infinite abysses of the Past, 
Revealed itself and made Creation rise 
Before Thy Eternal Mind : 
This little span of life, with purblind 

eyes 
That grow completely blind ; 
This little force of brain, 
Holding dim thoughts sublime, 
Too weak to withstand the treacheries 

of Time ; 
This body bent and bowed in twain, 
wSoon racked by growing pain, 
Which briefer far than is the life of the 

tree, 
Springs as a flower and fades, and then 

must rot 
And perish and be not, 
Passing from mystery to mystery ? 

It is a pain 

To move through the old fields, — even 

though they lie 
Before our eyes, we know that never 

again. 
Where once our daily feet were used to 

pass 
Amid the crested grass, 
We any more shall wander till we die ; 



Nor to the old grey church, with the 

tall spire. 
Whose vane the sunsets fire. 
Where once a little child, by kind hands 

led, 
Would spell the scant memorials of the 

dead, — 
Never again, or once alone. 
When pain and Time are done. 

The soaring thoughts of youth 

Are dead and cold, the victories of 

Thought 
Are no more prized or sought 
By eyes which draw too near the face 

of Truth. 
Whatever fruit or gain 
Fate held in store, 
To tempt the growing soul or brain. 
Allures no more. 
It is as the late Autumn, when the 

fields 
Are bare of flower or fruit ; 
Nor charm nor profit the swept surface 

yields. 
Sullen and mute ; 
So that a doubting mind might come to 

hold 
The very soul and life were dead and 

cold. 

But who can peer 

Into another soul, or tell at all 

What hidden energies befall 

The aged lingering here ? 

When all the weary brain 

Seems dull, the immeasurable fields of 

life 
Lie open to the memory, and again 
They know the youthful joys, the 

hurry and the strife, 
And feel, but gentlier now, the ancient 

pain. 



314 



THE ODE OF CHANGE. 



In the uneasy vigils of the night, 

Before the tardy light ; 

Or, lonely days, when no young lives 

are by, 
There come such long processions of 

the dead, 
The buried lives and hopes of far-off 

years. 
Spent joys and dried-up tears, 
That round them stands a blessed 

company, \ 
Holding high converse, though no 

word be said, 
Till only what is past and gone doth 

seem 
To live, and all the Present is a dream. 

So may the wintry earth. 

Holding her precious seeds within the 

ground, 
Pause for the coming birth, 
When like a trumpet-note the Spring 

shall sound ; 
So may the roots which, buried deep 
And safe within her sleep, 
Whisper as 'twere, within, tales of the 

sun^ — 
Whisper of leaf and flower, of bee and 

bird, — 
Till by a sudden glory stirred, 
A mystic influence bids them rise, 
Bursting the narrow sheath 
And cerement of death. 
And bloom as lilies again beneath the 

recovered skies. 



THE ODE Of CHANGE. 

I HAVE come to the lime of the failing 

of breath ; 
1 have reached the cold threshold of 

Death ! 



Death ! there is not any Death ; only 

infinite change. 
Only a place of life which is novel and 

strange. 
Change ! there is naught but change 

and renewal of strife, 
Which make up the infinite changes 

we sum up in life. 
Life ! what is life, that it ceases with 

ceasing of breath ? 
Death ! what were Life wdthout change, 

but an infinite Death ? 

As I lie on my bed, and the sun, like 

a furnace of fire, 
Burns amid the old pines in the west, 

ere the last ray expire. 
Can I dream he will rise no more, but 

a fathomless night 
Shall brood o'er Creation for ever, and 

shut out the light ? 
It is done, this Day of our Life ; but 

another shall rise, 
Day for ever following Day, in the 

infinite skies, 
Day following Day for ever ! 

Day following day, with the starlit 

darkness between ; 
Or, maybe in a world where Da\Nn 

comes, ere our sunset has been ; 
Day following Day for ever ! 

For ever ! though who shall tell in 

what seeming or where ? 
In what far-ofif secret space of God's 

limitless air? 
It matters nothing at all what we are 

or where set. 
If a spark of the Infinite Light can 

shine on us yet. 
Life following Life for ever ! 



THE ODE OF CHANGE. 



;is 



Life following Life for ever ! for what 

if the Sun 
Grew chilled, and the Universe cokl, 

and the orbits undone, 
And all the great globes should fall 

back into chaos once more ; 
They would wake at a glance of the 

Light, as they wakened before. 
There is no Death for ever ! 

Cease I but how should we cease while 

God's light shall remain ? 
He that has lighted Life's flame shall 

light it again ! 
What if He take back for a while, as 

the Sun from the Sea, 
Some spark of the radiance divine that 

bade all things to be ? 
We rest in Him, we are sunk, we are 

folded in Him, but we are ; 
As the star which draws near to the Sun 

is obscured, but is still a star. 
There is only Change for ever ! 

Shall I fear that I shall be changed and 

no more shall be I ? — 
I who know not what 'tis that I am, to 

live or to die? 
Nay, while God is, I too must be, else 

too weak were His hand ; 
The created is part of His essence, — 

how else could the Maker stand ? 
There is no Death for ever I 

Take me, oh infinite Cause, and cleanse 

me of wrong ! 
Take me, raise me to higher Being 

through centuries long ! 
Cleanse me, by pain, if need be, 

through aeons of days ! 
Take me and purge me, still I will 

answer with praise — 
There is no Death for ever ! 



Shall I mourn for those who are not 

Nay, while love and regret 
Still linger within our souls, they live 

with us yet. 
If we love, then the souls that we love, 

they exist and they are, 
As memory which makes us ourselves, 

brings precious things from far. 
Love lives and is for ever ! 

We are part of an Lifinite Scheme, 

All we that are ; 

Man the high crest and crown of 

things that be, 
The fiery-hearted earth, the cold un- 

fathomed sea, 
The central sun, the intermittent star. 
Things great and small, 
We are but parts of the Eternal All ; 
We live not in a barren, baseless 

dream ; 
No endless, ineffectual chain 
Of chance successions launched in 

vain ; 
But every beat of Time, 
Each sun that shines or fails to shine, 
Each animate life that comes to throb 

or cease, 
Each life of herb or tree 
Which blooms and fruits and then 

forgets to be, 
Each change of strife and peace, 
Each soaring thought sublime. 
Each deed of wrong and blood. 
Each impulse towards an unattained 

good,— 
All with a sure, unfaltering working 

tend 
To one Ineffable, Beatific End. 
Oh hidden Scheme, perfect Thyself, 

and take 
Our petty lives, and mould them as 

Thou wilt ! 



3i6 



PICTURES— I. 



All things that are, are only for Thy 


Whate'er the mystic coming change 


sake, 


Shall bring of new and strange. 


And not to obey Thee is our only 


He looks back once upon the fields of 


guilt ! 


life, 


Perfect Thyself, and be fulfilled, oh 


The good and evil locked in strife. 


great 


The happy and the unhappy days. 


Unfathomable Will, who art our Life 


The Right we always love, the oft- 


and Fate ! " 


triumphant Wrong ; 




And all his Being to a secret song 


There is hope, but nothing of fear, 


Sings with a mighty and unfaltering 


Nought but a patient mind. 


voice — 


For him who waits with conscience 


"I have been; Thou hast done all 


clear 


things well ; I am glad : I give 


And soul resigned 


thanks ; I rejoice ! " 



SONGS UNSUNG. 



PICTURES— L 

Above the abysmal undivided deep 
A train of glory streaming from afar ; 
And in the van, to wake the worlds 

from sleep. 
One on whose forehead shines the 

Morning-Star, 



Long-rolling surges of a falling sea, 

Smiting the sheer cliffs of an unknown 
shore ; 

And by a fanged rock, swaying help- 
lessly 

A mast with broken cordage — nothing 
more. 



Three peaks, one loftier, all in virgin 

white, 
Poised high in cloudland when the day 

is done. 
And on the mid-most, far above the night, 
The rose-red of the long-departed sun. 



A wild girl reeling, helpless, like to fall, 

Down a hushed street at dawn in mid- 
summer ; 

And one who had clean forgot their 
past and all, 

From a lit palace casement pities her. 



A young man, only clothed with youth's 

first bloom, 
In mien and form an angel, not in eye ; 



PICTURES— I, 



317 



Hard by, a fell worm crawling from a 

tomb, 
And one, wide-eyed, who cries, "The 

Enemy ! " 



A lake of molten fires u'hich swell and 

surge 
And fall in thunders on the burning 

verge ; 
And one a queen rapt, with illumined 

face, 
Who doth defy the Goddess of the 

place. 



Eros beneath a red-cupped tree, asleep, 
And 'mid the flowers, and thro' the air 

above. 
Fair boys with silver wings who smiling 

peep 
Upon the languid loosened limbs of love. 



A darkling gateway, thronged with 

entering ghosts, 
And a grave janitor, who seems to say : 
"Woe, woe to youth, to life, which 

idly boasts ; 
I am the End, and mine the appointed 

Wav.'' 



A young Faun making music on a reed, 

Deep in a leafy dell in Arcady : 

Three girl-nymphs fair, in musing 

thought take heed 
Of the strange youth's mysterious 

melody. 



A flare of lamplight in a shameful 
place 

Full of wild revel and unchecked 
offence, 

And in the midst, one fresh scarce- 
sullied face, 

Within her eyes, a dreadful innocence. 



A quire of seraphs, chanting row on 

row. 
With lute and viol and high trumpet 

notes ; 
And, above all, their soft young eyes 

aglow — 
Child angels, making laud from full 

clear throats. 



Some, on a cliff at dawn, in agony ; 
Below, a scaly horror on the sea, 
Lashing the leaden surge. Fast-bound, 

a maid 
Waits on the verge, alone, but unafraid. 



A poisonous, dead, sad sea-marsh, 

fringed with pine, 
Scarce lit by mouldering churches, old 

as Time ; 
Beyond, on high, just touched with 

wintry rime, 
The long chain of the autumnal Apen- 

nine. 



A god-like Presence, beautiful as Dawn, 
Watching, upon an untrodden summit 
white. 



318 



THE LESSON OF TIME. 



The Earth's last day grow full, and 

fade in night ; 
Then, with a sigh, the Presence is 

withdrawn. 



A sheer rock-islet, frowning on the sea 
Where no ship sails, nor ever life may 
be: 

Thousands of leagues around, from pole 

to pole, 
The unbounded lonely ocean-currents 

roll. 



Young maids who wander on a flower- 
lit lawn, 

In springtide of their lives as of the 
year ; 

Meanwhile, unnoticed, swift, a thing 
of fear, 

Across the sun, a deadly shadow drawn. 



Slow, hopeless, overborne, without a 
word, 

Two issuing, as if from Paradise ; 

Behind them, stern, and with unpitying 
eyes, 

Their former selves, wielding a two- 
edged sword. 



A weary woman tricked with gold and 

gem, 
Wearing some strange barbaric diadem. 
Scorn on her lips, and, like a hidden fire, 
Within her eyes cruel unslaked desire. 



Two aged figures, poor, and blurred 

with tears ; 
Their child, a bold proud woman, 

sweeping by ; 
A hard cold face, which pities not nor 

fears, 
And all contempt and evil in her eye. 



Around a harpsichord, a l)lue-eyed 

throng 
Of long-dead children, rapt in sounds 

devout, 
In some old grange, while on that 

silent song 
The sabbath luilight fades, and stars 

come out. 



The end of things created ; Dreadful 

night, 
Advancing swift on sky, and earth, and 

sea ; 
But at the zenith a departing light, 
A soaring countless blessed company ! 



THE LESSON OF TIME. 

Lead thou me, Spirit of the Workl, 
and I 

Will follow where thou leadest, will- 
ingly ; 

Not with the careless sceptic's idle 
mood. 

Nor blindly seeking some unreal good ; 

For I have come, long since to that full 

day 
Whose morning mists have fled and 

curled away — 



VENDREDI SAINT. 



319 



That breathless afternoon-tide when 

the Sun 
Halts, as it were, before his journey 

done, 

Cahii as a river broadening toward the 

main, 
^Vhich never plunges down the rocks 

again, 
But, clearly mirrored in its tranquil 

deep, 
Holds tower and spire and forest as in 

sleep. 

How old and worn the metaphor ap- 
pears, 

Old as the tale of passing hopes and 
fears ! 

New as the springtide air, which day 
by day 

Breathes on young lives, and speeds 
them on their way. 

The Roman knew it, and the Hellene 

too ; 
Assyrian and Egyptian proved it true ; 
^^'ho found for youth's young glory and 

its glow 
Serener life, and calmer tides run slow. 

And them oblivion takes, and those 

before, 
Whose very name and race we know 

no more. 
To whom, oh Spirit of the World and 

Man, 
Thou didst reveal Thyself when Time 

began, — 

They felt, as I, what none may under- 
stand ; 

They touched through darkness on a 
hidden hand ; 



They marked their hopes, their faiths, 

their longings fade, 
And found a solitude themselves had 

made ; 

They came, as I, to hope which con- 
quers doubt, 

Though sun and moon and every star 
go out ; 

They ceased, while at their side a still 
voice said, 

" Fear not, have courage ; blessed are 
the dead." 

They were my brothers— of one l)lood 

with me, 
As with the unborn myriads who shall 

be: 
I am content to rise and fall as they ; 
I watch the dawning of the Perfect Day. 

Lead thou me. Spirit, willing and 

content 
To be, if thou wouldst have me, 

wholly spent. 
I am thine owai, I neither strive nor cry : 
Stretch forth thy hand, I grasp it, 

silently. 



VENDREDI SAINT. 

This is Paris, the beautiful city, 
Heaven's gate to the rich, to the poor 

without pity. 
The clear sun shines on the fair town's 

graces, 
And on the cold green of the shrunken 

river. 
And the chill East blows, as 'twould 

blow for ever. 
On the holiday groups with their shin- 

\\\" faces. 



320 



VENDREDI SAINT. 



For this is the one solemn day of the 

season, 
When all the swift march of her gay 

unreason 
Pauses a while, and a thin veil of 

sadness 
Half hides, from strange eyes, the old 

riot and madness, 
And the churches are crowded with 

devotees holy, 
Kich and poor, saint and sinner, the I 

great and the lowly. 
» * * * 

Here is a roofless palace, where gape j 
Black casements in rows without form ' 

or shape : 
A sordid ruin, whose swift decay 
Speaks of that terrible morning in 

May 
When the whole fair city was blood 

and fire. 
And the black smoke of ruin rose 

higher and higher, 

And through the still streets, 'neath 

the broad Spring sun, 
I'^verywhere murder and rapine were 

done ; 
Women lurking, with torch in hand, 
Evil eyed, sullen, who soon should 

stand 
Before the sharp bayonets, dripping 

with blood. 
And be stabbed through and through, 

or shot dead where they stood. 
* * * * 

This is the brand-new Hotel de Ville, 
Where six hundred wretches met death 

in the fire ; 
Ringed round with a pitiless hedge of 

steel, 
Not one might escape that swift ven= 

geance. To-day 



The ruin, the carnage, are clean swept 

away ; 
And the sumptuous facades, and the 

high roofs aspire. 

And, ui3on the broad square, the white 

palace face 
Looks down with a placid and meaning- 
less grace, 
Ignoring the bloodshed, the struggle, 

the sorrow. 
The doom that has l:)een, and that may 

be to-morrow, 
The hidden hatred, the mad endeavour. 
The strife that still is and shall be for 

ever. 
* « * * 

Here rise the twin-towers of Notre Dame, 
Through siege, and revolt, and ruin 

the same. 
See the people in crowds pressing 

onward, slowly. 
Along the dark aisles to the altar holy — 
The altar, to-day, wrapt in mourning 

and gloom. 
Since He whom they worship lies dead 

in the tomb. 

There, by a tiny acolyte tended, 

A round-cheeked child in his cassock 

white, 
Lies the tortured figure to which are 

bended 
The knees of the passers who gaze on 

the sight. 
And the people fall prostrate, and kiss 

and mourn 
The fair dead limbs which the nails 

have torn. 

And the passionate music comes from 

the quire. 
Full of soft chords of a yearning pity 



VEND RED I SAINT. 



321 



The mournful voices accordant aspire 
To the far-off gates of the Heavenly 

City; 
And the clear, keen alio, soaring high 

and higher, 
Mounts now a surging fountain, now a 

heavenward fire. 

Ay, eighteen centuries after the day, 
A world-worn populace kneel and pray, 
As they pass by and gaze on the limbs 

unbroken. 
What symbol is this ? of what yearnings 

the token ? 
^Vhat spell this that leads men a part 

to be 
Of this old Judoean death-agony ? 

And I asked. Was it nought but a 

Nature Divine, 
That for lower natures consented to 

die? 
Could a greater than human sacrifice. 
Still make the tears spring to the world- 
worn eye ? 
One thought only it was that replied, 

and no other : 
This man was our brother. 

* * * * 

As I pass from the church, in the cold 

East wind, 
Leaving its solemn teachings behind : 
Once again, on the verge of the chill 

blue river, 
The blighted buds on the branches 

shiver ; 
Here, again, stream the holiday groups, 

with delight 
Gaping in wonder at some new sight. 

'Tis an open doorway, squalid and low, 
And crowds which ceaselessly come and 
go, 



Careless enough ere they see the sight 
Which leaves the gay faces pallid, and 

white : 
Something is there which can change 

their mood, 
And check the holiday flow of the 

blood. 

For the face which they see is the face 

of Death. 
Strange, such a thing as the ceasing of 

breath 
Should work such miraculous change as 

here : 
Turn the thing that we love, to a thing 

of fear ; 
Transform the sordid, the low, the 

mean. 
To a phantasm, pointing to Depths 

unseen. 

There they lie, the dead, unclaimed 
and unknown, 

Each on his narrow and sloping stone. 

The chill water drips from each to the 
ground ; 

No other movement is there, nor sound. 

With the look which they wore when 
they came to die. 

They gaze from blind eyes on the piti- 
less sky. 

No woman to-day, thank Heaven, is 
here ; 

But men, old for the most part, and 
broken quite, 

\Vho, finding this sad world a place of 
fear, 

Have leapt forth hopelessly into the 
night, 

Bankrupt of faith, without love, un- 
friended, 

Dead-tired of life's comedy ere 'twas 
ended, 

Y 



522 



NO MORE. NO MORE 



THE NEW CREED. 



But here is one younger, whose ashy 

face 
Bears some faint shadow of former 

grace. 
What brought him here ? was it love's 

sharp fever ? 
Was she worse than dead that he bore 

to leave her? 
Or was his young life, ere its summer 

came, 
Burnt by Passion's whirlwinds as by a 

flame. 

Was it Drink or Desire, or the die's 
sure shame, 

Which led this poor wanderer to deep 
disgrace ? 

Was it hopeless misfortune, unmixed 
with blame, 

That laid him here dead, in this dread- 
ful place ? 

Ah Heaven, of these nineteen long 
centuries, 

Is the sole fruit this thing with the 
sightless eyes ! 

Yesterday, passion and struggle and 

strife. 
Hatreds, it may be, and anger-choked 

breath ; 
Yesterday, fear and the burden of life ; 
To-day, the cold ease and the calmness 

of death : 
And that which strove and sinned and 

yielded there. 
To-day in what hidden place of God's 

mysterious air ? 

Whatever he has been, here now he 

lies, 
Facing the stare of unpitying eyes. 
I turn from the dank and dishonoured 

face, 



To the fair dead Christ by his altar I 

place, ' 

And the same thought replies to my 

soul, and no other — | 

This, too, was our brother. * 



''NO MORE, NO more:' 

"No more, no more," the autumnal 

shadows cry ; 
"No more, no more," our failing 

hearts reply : 
Oh ! that our lives were come to that 

calm shore 
Where change is done, and fading is 

no more. 

But should some mightier hand com- 
pletion send. 

And smooth life's stream unrippled to 
its end. 

Our sated souls, filled with an aching 
pain. 

Would yearn for fleeting days and years 
again. 

Thrice blessed be the salutary change 
Which day by day brings thoughts and 

feelings strange ! 
Our gain is loss, we keep but what we 

give, 
And only daily dying may we live. 



THE NEW CREED. 

Yesterday, to a girl I said— 

" I take no pity on the unworthy dead. 

The wicked, the unjust, the vile who 

die ; 
'Twere better thus that they should rot 

and lie. 



THE NEW CREED. 



323 



The sweet, the lovable, the just 

Make holy dust ; 

Elsewhere than on the earth 

Shall come their second birth. 

Until they go each to his destined 

place, 
Whether it be to bliss or to disgrace, 
'Tis well that both shall rest, and for a 

while be dead." 
" There is nowhere else," she said. 

" There is nowhere else." And this 

was a girl's voice 
^Vho, some short tale of summers gone 

to-day, 
Would carelessly rejoice, 
As life's blithe springtide passed upon 

its way 
And all youth's infinite hope and bloom 
Shone round her ; nor might any 

shadow of gloom 
Fall on her as she passed from llower 

to flower ; 
Love sought her, with full dower 
Of happy wedlock and young lives to 

rear ; 
Nor shed her eyes a tear, 
Save for some passing pity, fancy-bred. 
All good things were around her — 

riches, love. 
All that the heart and mind can move. 
The precious things of art, the un- 

defiled 
And innocent affection of a child. 
Oh girl, who always sunny ways dost 

tread, 
What curse is this that blights that 

comely head ? 
For right or wrong there is no further 

place than here. 
No sanctities of hope, no chastening 

fear? 
" There is nowhere else," she said. 



''There is nowhere else," and in the 

wintry ground 
When we have laid the darlings of our 

love — 
The little lad with eyes of blue, 
The little maid with curls of gold, 
Or the beloved aged face 
On which each passing year stamps a 

diviner grace — 
That is the end of all, the narrow 

bound. 
Why look our eyes above 
To an unreal home which mortal never 

knew — • 
Fold the hands on the breast, the clay- 
cold fingers fold ? 
No waking comes there to the uncaring 

dead ! 
"There is nowhere else," she said. 

Strange ; is it old or new, this deep 

distress ? 
Or do the generations, as they press 
Onward for ever, onward still, 
Finding no truth to fill 
Their starving yearning souls, from year 

to year 
Feign some new form of fear 
To fright them, some new tenor 
Couched on the path of error. 
Some cold and desolate word which, 

like a blow, 
Forbids the current of their faith to flow, 
Makes slow their pulse's eager beat. 
And, chilling all their wonted heat, 
Leaves them to darkling thoughts and 

dreads a prey, 
Uncheered by dawning shaft or setting 

ray? 

Ah, old it is, indeed, and nowise new. 
This is the poison-growth that grew 



324 



THE NEW CREED. 



In the old thinkers' fancy -haunted 

ground. 
They, bhnded by some keen too-vivid 

gleam 
Of the Unseen, to which all things did 

seem 
To shape themselves and tend, 
Solved, by some Giant Force, the 

Mystery of Things, 
And, soaring all too high on Fancy's 

wings, 
Saw in dead matter both their Source 

and End. 
They felt the self-same shock and pain 
As I who hear these prattlings cold to- 
day. 
Not otherwise of old the fool to his 

heart did say. 
" There is no other place of joy or 

grief, 
Nor wrong in doubt, nor merit in belief : 
There is no God, nor Lord of quick 

and dead ; 
There is nowhere else," they said. 

And, indeed, if any to whom life's path 

were rough 
Should say as you, he had cause maybe 

at sight. 
Truly, the way is steep and hard enough, 
And wrong is tangled and confused 

with right ; 
And from all the world there goes a 

solemn sound 
Of lamentations, rising from the ground, 
Confused as that which shocks the won- 
dering ear 
Of one who, gliding on the still lagune, 
Finds the oar's liquid plash and tune 
Lost in wild cries of frenzy and of 

fear, 
And knows the Isle of Madness draw- 
ing near ; 



And the great scheme, if scheme there 
be indeed, 

Is a book deeper than our eyes may 
read. 

Full of wild paradox, and vain endea- 
vour. 

And hopes and faiths which find com- 
pletion never. 

For such a one, in seasons of dismay 

And dark depression deepening to 
despair, 

Clouds come ofttimes to veil the face 
of day. 

And there is no ray left of all the beams 
of gold. 

The glow, the radiance bright, the un- 
clouded faith of old. 

But you, poor child forlorn, 

Ah ! better were it you were never born ; 

Better that you had flung your heart 
away 

On some coarse lump of clay ; 

Better defeat, disgrace, childlessness, 
all 

That can a solitary life befall. 

Than to have all things and yet be 

Self-bound to dark despondency, 

And self-tormented, beyond reach of 
doubt, 

By some cold Mord that puts all yearn- 
ings out. 

" There is nowhere else," she said : 
This is the outcome of their crude Belief 
Who are, beyond all rescue and relief. 
Being self-slain and numbered with the 

dead. 
" There is no God but Force, 
Which, working always on its destined 

course. 
Speeds on its way and knows no thought 

of change. 



THE NEW CREED. 



325 



Within the germ the molecule fares free, 

Holding the potency of what shall be ; 

Within the little germ lurks the heaven- 
reaching tree : 

No break is there in all the cosmic 
show. 

What place is there, in all the Scheme 
Immense, 

For a remote unworking Excellence 

Which may not be perceived by any 
sense, 

Which makes no humble blade of grass 
to grow, 

Which adds no single link to things and 
thoughts we know?" 

" For everything that is, indeed, 

Bears with it its own seed ; 

It cannot change or cease and be no 

more : 
All things for ever are even as they 

were before, 
Or if, by long degrees and slow, 
More complex doth the organism grow, 
It makes no break in the eternal plan ; 
There is no gulf that yawns between 

the herb and man." 

Poor child, what is it they have taught, 
Who through deep glooms and desert 

wastes of thought 
Have brought to such as you their dreary 

creed ? 
Have they no care, indeed. 
For all the glorious gains of man's long 

past. 
For all our higher hope of what shall 

be at last ? 
" All things are moulded in one mould ; 
They spring, they are, they fade by one 

compulsion cold — 
Some dark necessity we cannot know. 
Which bids them wax and grow, — 



That is sufficient cause for all things, 

quick and dead ! " 
"There is no Cause else," she said. 

Oh, poor indeed, and in evil case, 
Wlio shouldst be far from sound of doubt 
As a maiden in some restful place 
Whose tranquil life, year in year out, 
Is built on gentle worship, homely days 
Lit each by its own light of prayer and 

praise, 
For whom the spire points always to 

the sky, 
And heaven lies open to the cloistered 

eye. 
For us, for us, who mid the weary strife 
And jangling discords of our life 
Are day by day opprest, 
'Twere little wonder were our souls 

distrest, 
God, and the life to be, and all our 

early trust 
Being far from us expelled and thrust ; 
But for you, child, who cannot know 

at all 
To what mysterious laws we stand or 

fall, 
To what bad heights the wrong within 

may grow, 
To what dark deeps the stream of hope- 
less lives may flow ! 

For let the doubter cavil as he can. 

There is no wit in man 

Which can make Force rise higher 

still 
Up to the heights of Will,— 
No phase of Force which finite minds 

can know 
Can self-determined grow, 
And of itself elect what shall its essence 

be: 
The same to all eternity, 



326 



THE NEW CREED. 



Unchanged, unshaped, it goes upon its 

blinded way ; 
Nor can all forces nor all laws 
Bring ceasing to the scheme, nor any 

pause, 
Nor shape it to the mould in which to be — 
Form from the winged seed the myriad- 
branching tree,- — • 
Nor guide the force once sped, so that 

it turn 
To Water-floods that quench or Fires 

that burn. 
Or now to the electric current change, 
Or draw all things by some attraction 

strange. 
Or in the brain of man, working unseen, 

sublime, 
Transcend the narrow bounds of Space 

and Time. 

Whence comes the innate Power which 

knows to guide 
The force deflected so from side to side, 
That not a barren line from whence to 

where 
It goes upon its way through the un- 
fettered air ? 
What launched the prisoned atom on 

its fruitful course? 
All,' it was more than Force 
Which gave the Universe of things its 

form and face ! 
Force moving on its path through Time 

and Space 
Would round no orb, but leave all 

barren still. 
A higher Power, it was, the worlds 

could form and fill ; 
And by some pre-existent harmony 
Were all things made as Fate would 

have them be — 
Fate, the ineffable Word of an Eternal 

Will. 



All things that are or seem, 

Whether we wake who see or do but 
dream. 

Are of that Primal Will phantasms, if 
no more ; 

Who sees these right sees God, and 
seeing doth adore. 

Joy, suffering, evil, good, 

Whate'er our daily food, 

Whate'er the mystery and paradox of 
things, 

Low creeping thoughts and high ima- 
ginings. 

The laughters of the world, the age- 
long groan. 

Bring to his mind one name, one thought 
alone ; 

All beauty, right, deformity, or wrong, 

Sing to his ear one high unchanging song ; 

And everything that is, to his rapt 
fancy brings 

The hidden beat through space of the 
Eternal Wrings. 

Where did the Idea dwell, 

At first, which was of all the germ and 
seed? 

Which worked from Discord order, 
from blind Force 

Sped all the Cosmos on its upward 
course ? 

Which held within the atom and the cell 

The whole vast hidden Universe, shel- 
tered well, 

Till the hour came to unfold it, and the 
need ? 

What did the ever-upward growth con- 
I ceive, 

. Which from the obedient monad formed 
I the herb, the tree. 

The animal, the man, the high growths 
that shall be ? 



THE NEW CREED. 



327 



Ever from simpler to more complex 

grown, 
The long processions from a source un- 
known 
Unfold themselves across the scene of 

life. 
Oh blessed struggle and strife, 
Fare onward to the end, since from a 

Source . 
Thou art, which doth transcend and 

doth determine Force ! 
Fare onward to the end ; not from 

Force, dead and blind 
Thou comest, but from the depths of 

the Creative Mind. 

Fare on to the end, liut how should 

ending be, 
If Will be in the Universe, and plan? 
Some higher thing shall be, that which 

to-day is Man. 
Undying is each cosmic force : 
Undying, but transformed, it runs its 

endless course. 
It cannot wane, or sink, or be no 

more. 
Not even the dust and lime which 

clothe us round 
Lose their own substance in the charnel- 

ground. 
Or carried far upon the weltering wind ; 
Only with other growths combined, 
In some new whole they are for ever — 
They are, and perish never. 
The great suns shed themselves in heat 

and light 
On the vast vacant interstellar air. 
Till when their scattered elements unite 
They are replenished as before they 

were. 
Nothing is lost, nor can be : change 

alone, 
Unceasing, never done, 



Shapes all the forms of things, and 
keeps them still 

Obedient to the Unknown Perfect 
Will. 

And shall the life that is the highest 
that we know. 

Shall this, alone, no more increase, ex- 
pand and grow ? 

Nay, somewhere else there is, although 

we know not where, 
Nor what new shape God gives our 

lives to wear. 
We are content, whatever it shall be ; 
Content, through all eternity. 
To be whatever the Spirit of the World 

deem best ; — 
Content to be at rest ; 
Content to work and fare thi'ough end- 
less days ; 
Content to spend ourselves in endless 

praise : 
Nay, if it be the Will Divine, 
Content to be, and through long lives 

to pine. 
Far from the light which vivifies, the 

fire 
Which breathes upon our being and 

doth inspire 
All soaring thoughts and hopes which 

light our pathway here ; 
Content, though with some natural 

thrill of fear. 
To be purged through by age-long 

pain, 
Till we resume our upward march 

again ; 
Content, at need, to take some lower 

form. 
Some humbler herb or worm 
To be awhile, if e'er the eternal plan 
Go back from higher to lower, from 

man to less than man. 



328 



A GREAT GULK 



Not so, indeed, we hold, but rather 

this— 
That all Time gone, that all that was 

or is, 
The scarped cliff, the illimitable Past, 
This truth alone of all truths else hold 

fast :— 
From lower to higher, from simple to 

complete. 
This is the pathway of the Eternal Feet ; 
From earth to lichen, herb to flowering 

tree. 
From cell to creeping worm, from man 

to what shall be. 
This is the solemn lesson of all time. 
This is the teaching of the voice 

sublime : 
Eternal are the worlds, and all that 

them do fill ; 
Eternal is the march of the Creative 

Will ; 
Eternal is the life of man, and sun, and 

star ; 
Ay, even though they fade a while, 

they are ; 
And though they pause from shining, 

speed for ever still. 



A GREAT GULF. 

If any tender sire 

Who sits girt round by loving faces 

And happy childhood's thousand 

graces. 
Through sudden crash or fire 
Should 'scape from this poor life to 

some mysterious air, 
And, dwelling solitary there. 
Feel his unfilled and yearning father's 

heart 
Pierced through by some intoleralile 

smart ; 



And, sickening for the dear lost lives 

again, 
Through his o'ermastering pain 
Should break the awful bounds the 

Eternal sets between 
That which lives Here, and There, the 

Seen and the Unseen ; 

And having gained once more 

This little Earth, should reach the 

scarce-left place 
Wliich greets him with unchanged 

familiar face — 
The well-remembered door, 
The rose he watered blooming yet, 
Nought to remember or forget. 
No change in all the world except in 

him, 
Nor there save in some sense already dim 
Before the unaltered past, so that he 

seem 
A mortal spirit still, and what was 

since, a dream ; 

And in the well-known room 

Finds all the blithe remembered faces 

Grown sad and blurred by recent traces 

Of a new sorrow and gloom. 

And when his soul to comfort them is 

fain 
Mourns his voice mute, his form 

unknown, unseen. 
And thinks with irrepressible pain 
Of all the happy days which late have 

been. 
And feels his new life's inmost chambers 

stirred 
If only of his own, he might be seen or 

heard ; 

Then if, at length, 

The father's yearning and o'erburdened 

soul 



ONE DAY— SEASONS. 



329 



Burst into shape and voice which scorn 

control 
Of its despairing strength, — 
Ah Heaven ! ah pity for the present 

dread 
Which rising, strikes the old affection 

dead ! 
Ah, better were it far than this thing 

to remain. 
Voiceless, unseen, unloved, for ever 

and in pain I 

So when a finer mind, 

Knowing its old self swept by some 

weird change 
And the old thought deceased, or else 

grown strange, 
Turns to those left behind, 
With passionate stress and mighty 

yearning stirred, — ■ 
It strives to stand revealed in shape 

and word 
In vain ; or by strong travail visible 

grown, 
Finds but a world estranged, and lives 

and dies alone ! 



ONE DAY, 

One day, one day, our lives shall seem 
Thin as a brief forgotten dream : 
One day, our souls by life opprest, 
Shall ask no other boon than rest. 

And shall no hope nor longing come, 
No memory of our former home, 
No yearning for the loved, the dear 
Dead lives that are no longer here ? 

If this be age, and age no more 
Recall the hopes, the fears of yore, 
The dear dead mother's accents mild. 
The lisping of the little child, 



Come, Death, and slay us ere the 

blood 
Run slow, and turn our lives from good j 
For only in such memories we 
Consent to linger and to be. 



SEASONS. 

The colds winds rave on the icy 

river, 
The leafless branches complain and 

shiver, 
The snow clouds sweep on, to a dreary 

tune, — 
Can these be the earth and the heavens 

of June ? — 

When the blossoming trees gleam in 

virginal white, 
And heaven's gate opens wide in the 

lucid night, 
x\nd there comes no sound on the 

perfumed air 
But the passionate brown bird, carolling 

fair. 

And the lush grass in upland and low- 
land stands deep. 

And the loud landrail lulls the children 
to sleep, 

And the white still road and the thick 
leaved wood 

Are haunted by fanciful solitude ; 

And by garden and lane men and 

maidens walk, 
Busied with trivial, loverlike talk ; 
And the white and the red rose, newly 

blown. 
Open, each with a perfume and grace 

of its own. 



330 



IJIE PATHOS OF ART— IN THE STRAND. 



The cold wind sweeps o'er the desolate 

hill, 
The stream is bound fast and tlie wolds 

are chill ; 
And by the dead flats, where the cold 

blasts moan, 
A bent body wearily plods alone. 



THE PATHOS OF ART 

Oft, seeing the old painters' art. 
We find the tear unbidden start, 
And feel our full hearts closer grow 
To the far days of long ago. 

Xot burning faith, or godlike pain, 
Can thus our careless thought enchain ; 
The heavenward gaze of souls sublime, 
At once transcends, and conquers time. 

Nor pictured form of seer or saint, 
Which hands inspired delight to paint ; 
Art's highest aims of hand or tongue, 
Age not, but are for ever young. 

But some imperfect trivial scene. 
Of homely life which once has been, 
Of youth, so soon to pass away. 
Of happy childhood's briefer day ; 

Or humble daily tasks portrayed — 
The thrifty mistress with her maid ; 
The flowers, upon the casement set, 
Which in our Aprils blossom yet ; 

The long processions, never done ; 
The time-worn palace, scarce begun ; 
The gondolier, who plies his oar 
For stately sirs or dames of yore ; 

The girl with fair hair morning-stirred. 
Who swings the casement for her bird ; 



The hunt ; the feast ; the simple mirth 
Which marks the marriage or the 
birth ; 

The burly forms, from side to side 

Swift rolling on the frozen tide ; 

The long-haired knights ; the ladies 

prim ; 
The chanted madrigal or hymn ; 

The opera, with its stately throng ; 
The twilight church aisles stretching 

long ; 
The spires upon the wooded wold ; 
The dead pathetic life of old ; — 

These all the musing mind can fill — 
So dead, so past, yet living still : 
Oh dear dead lives, oh hands long gone, 
Whose life, whose Art still lingers on 1 



IN THE STRAND. 

In the midst of the busy and roaring 

Strand, 
Dividing life's current on either hand, 
A time-worn city church, sombre and 

grey, 
Waits, while the multitude passes away. 

Beside it, a strait plot of churchyard 

ground 
Is fenced by a time-worn railing 

around ; 
And within, like a i:)avement, the 

ground is spread 
With the smooth worn stones of the 

nameless dead. 

But here and there, in the spaces 

between. 
When the slow Spring bursts, and the 

fields grow green, 



CCELUM NON ANIMUM. 



331 



Every year that comes, 'mid the graves 

of the dead 
Some large-leaved flower-stem lifts up 

its head. 

In the Spring, though as yet the sharp 

East be here, 
This green stem burgeons forth year by 

year : 
Through twenty swift summers and 

more, have I seen 
This tender shoot rise from its sheath 

of green. 

New busy crowds pass on with hurry- 
ing feet. 

The young lives grow old and the old 
pass away ; 

But unchanged, 'mid the graves, at the 
fated day, 

The green sheath bursts upwards and 
grove's complete. 

From the grave it bursts forth, 'mid the 

graves it shall die. 
It shall die as we die, as it lives we 

shall live ; 
And this poor flower has stronger 

assurance to give. 
Than volumes of learning, which 

blunder or lie. 

For out of the dust and decay of the 

tomb, 
Tt springs, the sun calling, to beauty 

ami bloom ; 
And amid the sad city, 'mid death and 

'mid strife. 
It preaches its mystical promise of life. 



CCELUM NON ANThfTIM. 

Oh fair to be, oh sweet to be \ 

In fancy's shallop faring free. 
With silken sail and fairy mast 
To float till all the world be past ! 

Oh happy fortune, on and on 
To wander far till care be gone. 
Round beetling capes, to unknown 

seas, 
Seeking the fair Hesperides ! 

But is there any land or sea 
Where toil and trouble cease to be — 
Some dim, unfound, diviner shore. 
Where men may sin and mourn no 
more ? 

Ah, not the feeling, but the sky 
We change, however far we fly ; 
How swift soe'er our bark may speed, 
Faster the blessed isles recede. 

Nay, best it is at home to find 

Food for the labouring heart and mind, 

And take, since thus the world grows 

fair, 
Duty and pleasure everywhere. 

Oh well-worn road, oh homely way. 
Where pace our footsteps, day by day, 
The homestead and the church which 

bound 
The tranquil seasons' circling round ! 

Ye hold experiences which reach 
Depths which no change of skies can 

teach. 
The saintly thought, the secret strife 
Which guide, which do perturl) our 

life. 



332 



NIOBE. 



NIOBE. 

ON SIPYLUS. 

Ah me, ah me ! on this high mountain 

peak, 
Which far above the seething Lydian 

plains 
Takes the first dawn-shaft, and the sun- 
set keeps 
When all the fields grow dark— I, 

Niobe, 
A mother's heart, pent in a prison of 

stone, 
Stand all day in the vengeful sun-god's 

eye. 
Stand all night in the cold gaze of the 

moon, 



Of rhythmic grace, and musical utter- 
ance 

As when, in far-off Thebes, the en- 
chanted wall 

Rose perfect, to the music of his lyre. 

Ah me, the fatal day ! For at high noon 
I sate within my Theban palace fair — 
Deep summer-time it was — and marked 

the crowd 
From the thronged city street, to the 

smooth plain. 
Stream joyously : the brave youths, full 

of life. 
Stripped for the mimic fray, the leap, 

the race. 
The wrestling ; and the princes, my 
strong sons, 
Who Ijoth long ages since conspiring, ! The fair limbs I had borne beneath my 

slew zone 

My children,— I a childless mother ^ Grown to full stature, such as maidens 

now love,— 

Who was most blest, a grieving woman The sinewy arms, the broad chests, and 

still, strong loins 

Who am bereft of all, yet cannot die. Of manhood ; the imperfect flower-like 

forms, 
Ah day, ill-fated day, which wrecked Eager with youth's first fires ; my 

my life ! \ youngest born, 

I was the happy mother of strong sons, j My darling, doffing his ephebic robe 
Brave, beautiful, all in their bloom of : Which late he donned with pride, a 

age : | child in heart. 

From him my first-born, now a bearded In budding limbs a youth; — I see them 

man, go. 

Through the fair promise of imperfect Their fair young bodies glistening in 

youth, the sun, 

To the slim stripling who had scarcely Which kissed the shining olive. As 

left j they went. 

The women's chambers, on whose lip t The joyous concourse winding towards 



scant shade 
Of budding manhood showed, I loved 
them all ; 



the plain. 
My happy eyes o'erflowed, and as I 
turned 



All with their father's eyes, and that i And saw my daughters round me, fair 
strange charm grown lives 



NIOBE. 



And virgin, sitting spinning the white 

flax, 
Each with lier distaff, beautiful and 

fit 
To wed with any stately king of men 
And reign a queen in Hellas, my glad 

heart 
Broke forth in pride, and as I looked I 

thought, 
" Oh happy, happy mother of such 

sons ! 
Oh happy, happy mother of such girls ! 
For whom full soon the joyous nuptial 

rites 
Shall bring the expectant bridegroom 

and the bride. 
And soon once more the little childish 

hands 
Which shall renew my early wedded 

years, 
When the king loved me first. Thrice 

blest indeed. 
There is no queen in Hellas such as I, 
Dowered with such fair grown off- 
spring ; not a queen 
Nor mother o'er all earth's plain, around 

which flows 
The wide salt stream of the encircling 

sea. 
As blest as I. Nay, in Olympus' self 
To all-compelling Zeus, what offspring 

bare 
Lcto of yore ? Phoebus and Artemis, 
A goodly pair indeed, but two alone. 
Poor mother, that to such a lord as 

Zeus 
Pare only those, no fairer than my own. 
Nay, I am happier than a goddess' 

self; 
I would not give this goodly train of 

mine 
For that scant birth. I ask no boon of 

Zeus, 



Nor of the Olympian Gods ; for I am 

glad. 
No fruitful mother in a peasant's hut, 
Scorning the childless great, thinks 

scorn of me. 
Being such as I. Nay, let Queen Leto's 

self 
Know, that a mortal queen has chanced 

to bear 
As fair as she, and more." 

Even as I spoke. 
While these unhallowed boastings 

flushed my pride, 
Through the closed lattice pierced one 

angry shaft 
Of blinding sun, which on the opposite 

wall 
Traced some mysterious sign, and on 

my mind 
Such vague remorse and consciousness 

of ill, 
That straight, that arrogant boldness 

sank and died 
In a great dread, nor hardly could I bear 
To look upon the fairness of my girls, 
Who, seeing the vague trouble in my 

eyes, 
Grew pale, and shuddered for no cause, 

and gazed 
Chilled 'midst the blaze of sunlight. 

Then I strove 
To laugh my fears away, as one who 

knows 
Some great transgression weigh on him, 

some load 
Which will not be removed, but bears 

him down. 
Though none else knows it, pressing 

on his heart. 

But when the half unuttered thought 

grew dim 
And my fear with it, suddenly a cry 



334 



NIOBE. 



Rose from the city street, and then the 

sound 
Of measured hurrying feet, and looking 

forth 
To where the youth liad passed so late, 

in joy, 
Came two wlio carried tenderly, with 

tears, 
A boy's slight form. I had no need 

to look, 
For all the mother rising in me 

knew 
That 'twas my ycnmgest born they bore ; 

I knew 
What fate befell him — 'twas the venge- 
ful sun, 
And I alone was guilty, I, his mother. 
Who being filled with impious pride, 

had brought 
Death to my innocent child. I hurried 

down 
The marble stair and met them as they 

came. 
Bearing his corpse, and kissed his lips 

and called 
His name, yet knew that he was dead ; 

and all 
His brothers stood regarding us with 

tears, 
And would have soothed me with their 

loving words. 
Me guilty, who were guiltless, oh, my 

sons ! 
Till as I looked up from the dead, — a 

cry 
Of agony, — and then another fell 
Struggling for life upon the earth, and 

then 
Another, and another, till the last 
Of all my stalwart boys, my life, my 

pride, 
Lay dead upon the ground, and the 

fierce sun 



Frenzied my brain, and all distraught 

with woe 
I to the palace tottered, while they 

bore 
Slowly the comely corpses of my sons. 

That day I dare not think of when 

they lay. 
White shrouded, in the darkened palace 

rooms. 
Like sculptured statues on a marble 

hearse. 
How calm they looked and happy, my 

dear sons ! 
There was no look of pain within their 

eyes, 
The dear dead eyes which I their 

mother closed ; 
Me miserable ! I saw the priests ap- 
proach. 
And ministers of death ; I saw my girls 
Flung weeping on the brothers ^vhom 

they loved. 
I saw it all as in a dream. I know not 
How often the dead night woke into 

day. 
How often the hot day-time turned to 

night. 
I did not shudder even to see the Sun 
Which slew my sons ; but in the still, 

dead night, 
When in that chill and lifeless place of 

death, 
The cold, clear, cruel moonlight seemed 

to play 
Upon the ranged corpses, and to mock 
My mother's heart, and throw on each 

a hue 
Of swift corruption ere its time, I knew 
Some secret terror lest the jealous gods 
Might find some further dreadful ven. 

geance still. 
Taking what yet was left. 



NIOBE. 



335 



At set of sun 

The sad procession to the place of 
graves 

Went with the rites of royal sepulture, 

The high priest at its head, the nobles 
round 

The dear white shrouded corpses : Last 
of all 

I went, the guilty one, my fair sweet 
girls 

Clinging to me in tears ; but I, I shed 
not 

A single tear — grief dried the fount of 
tears, 

I had shed all mine. 

Only o'ermastering dread 

Held me of what might come. 

When they were laid, 

Oh, wretched me, my dear, my well- 
loved sons ! 

Within the kingly tomb, the dying sun 

Had set, and in his stead the rising 
moon, 

Behind some lofty mountain-peak con- 
cealed. 

Relit some ghostly twilight. As we 
knelt. 

The people all withdrawn a little space, 

I and my daughters in that place of 
death, 

I lifted up my suppliant voice, and they 

With sweet girl voices pure, and soaring 
hymn, 

To the great Powers above. 

But when at last 

I heard my hollow voice pleading alone 

And all the others silent, then I looked, 

And on the tomb the cold malignant 
moon. 

Bursting with pale chill beams of light, 
revealed 

My fair girls kneeling mute and motion- 
less. 



Their dead eyes turned to the unpitying 

orb, 
Their white lips which should offer 

prayer no more. 

Such vengeance wreaked Phoebus and 

Artemis 
Upon a too proud mother. But on me 
Who only sinned no other punishment 
They took, only the innocent lives I 

loved— 
If any punishment, indeed, were more 
Than this to one who had welcomed 

death. I think 
My children happier far in death than I 
Who live to muse on these things. 

When my girls 
Were laid in earth, I, my lone palace 

gate 
Leaving without a tear, sped hither in 

haste 
To this high rock of Sipylus where er^t 
My father held his court ; and here, 

long years, 
Summer and winter, stay I, day and 

night 
Gazing towards the far-off plain of 

Thebes, 
Wherein I was so happy of old time, 
W^herein I erred and suffered. Turned 

to stone 
They thought me, and 'tis true the 

mother's heart 
Which knows such grief as I knew, 

turns to stone, 
And all her life ; and pitying Zeus, in- 
deed, 
Seeing my suffering, listened to my 

prayer 
And left me seeming stone, but still the 

heart 
Of tlie mother grows nothartl,and year 

by year 



336 



PICTURES— IL — A XIGHT IN NAPLES. 



When conies the summer with its cloud- 
less skies, 
And the high sun lights hill and plain 

by day, 
And the moon, shining, silvers them 

by night. 
My old grief, rising dew-like to my 

eyes, I 

Quickens my life with not unhappy 

tears, 
And through my penitent and yearning 

heart 
There throbs again a pulse of love and 

grief : 
Love triumphing at last o'er Fate and 

Death, 
Grief all divine and vindicating Love. 



And higher on the glaring sky 
A huge sierra, dead and dry. 



A rain-swept moor at shut of day, 
And by the dead unhappy way 
A lonely child untended lies : 
Against the West a wretch who flies. 



Cold dawn, which flouts the abandoned 

hall, 
And one worn face, which loathes it all ; 
In his ringed hand a vial, while 
The grey lips wear a ghastly smile. 



PICTURES— IL 

A LURID sunset, red as blood. 
Firing a sombre, haunted wood ; 
From whose recesses, dark and fell. 
One hurries with a face of Hell. 



Two at a banquet board alone. 
In dalliance, the feast being done. 
And one behind the arras stands, 
Grasping an axe with quivering hands. 



A high cliff-meadow lush with Spring 
Gay butterflies upon the wing ; 
Beneath, beyond, unbounded, free, 
The foam-flecked, blue, pervading sea. 



A clustering hill-town, climbing white 
From the grey olives up the height. 



Corinthian pillars fine, which stand 
In moonlight on a desert sand ; 
Others o'erthrown, in whose dark shade 
Some fire-eyed brute its lair has made. 



Mountainous clouds embattled high 
Around a dark blue lake of sky ; 
And from its clear depths, shining far, 
The calm eye of the evening star. 



A moonlight chequered avenue ; 
Above, a starlit glimpse of blue : 
And from the thick-laced shade be- 
tween 
The grey ghost of a woman seen. 



A NIGHT IN NAPLES. 

This is the one night in all the year 
When the faithful of Naples who love 
their priest 



A NIGHT IN NAPLES. 



337 



May find their faith and their wealth 

increased ; 
For just as the stroke of midnight is 

here, 

Those who with faithful undoubting 

mind 
Their " Aves " mutter, their rosaries 

tell, 
They without doubt shall a recompence 

find; 
Vea, their faith indeed shall profit them 

well. 

Therefore, to-night, in the hot thronged 

street 
By San Gennaro's, the people devout, 
With banner, and relic, and thurible 

meet, 
With some sacred image to marshal 

them out. 

For a few days hence, the great lottery 
Of the sinful city declared will be, 
And it may be that Aves and Paters 

said 
Will bring some aid from the realms of 

the dead. 

And so to the terrible place of the tomb 
They issue, a pitiful crowd, through the 

gloom. 
To where all the dead of the city decay. 
Waiting the trump of the judgment day. 

For every day of the circling year 
Brings its own sum of corruption here ; 
Every day has its great pit, fed 
With its dreadful heap of the shroudless 
dead. 

And behind a grated rust-eaten door. 
Marked each with their fated month 
and day. 



The young and the old, who in life 

were poor. 
Fester together and rot away. 

Silence is there, the silence of death. 

And in silence those poor pilgrims 
wearily pace, 

And the wretched throng, pitiful, hold- 
ing its breath, 

Comes with shambling steps to the 
dreadful place. 

Till before these dark portals, the 
muttering crowd 

Breaks at length into passionate suff- 
rages loud. 

Waiting the flickering vapour thin, 

Bred of the dreadful corruption within. 

And here is a mother who kneels, not 

in woe, 
By the vault where her child was flung 

months ago ; 
And there is a strong man who peers 

with dry eyes 
At the mouth of the gulph where his 

dead wife lies. 

Till at last, to reward them, a faint blue 

fire, 
Like the ghost of a soul, flickers here or 

there 
At the gate of a vault, on the noisome 

air, 
x\nd the wretched throng has its low 

desire ; 

And with many a praise of favouring 

saint, 
And curses if any refuses to heed, 
Full of low hopes and of sordid greed, 
To the town they file backward, weary 

and faint. 

z 



338 



LIFE— CRADLED IN MUSIC. 



And a few days hence, the great lottery 
Of the sinful city declared will be, 
And a number thus shewn to those 

sordid eyes. 
May, the saints being willing, attain 

the prize. 

Wherefore to Saint and Madonna be 

said. 
All praise and laud, and the faithful 

dead ! 

* * * * 

It was long, long ago, in far-oft" Judrea, 
That they slew Him of old, whom 

these slay to-day ; 
They slew Him of old, in far-off 

Judoea, — 
II is long, long ago ; it was far, far away ! 



LIFE. 

Like to a star, or to a fire, 

Which ever brighter grown, or higher, 

Doth shine forth fixed, or doth aspire ; 

Or to a glance, or to a sigh ; 
Or to a low wind whispering by. 
Which scarce has risen ere it die ; 

Or to a bird, whose rapid flight 
Eludes the dazed observer's sight, 
Or a stray shaft of glancing light, 

That for an instant breaks the gloom 
Which wraps some dark, forgotten 

tomb, 
Or some sweet Spring-flower's fleeting 

bloom ; — 

Mixed part of reason, part belief. 
Of pain and pleasure, joy and grief. 
As changeful as the Spring, nnd 
brief ; — 



A wave, a shadow, a breath, a strife. 
With change on change for ever rife !- 
This is the thing we know as life. 



CRADLED LN MUSIC. 

A BRIGHT young mother, day by day, 

I meet upon the crowded way, 

Who turns her dark eyes, deep and 

mild , 
Upon her little sleeping child. 

For on the organ laid asleep. 

In childish slumbers light, yet deep, 

Calmly the rosy infant lies ; 

The long fair lashes veil its eyes. 

There, o'er its childish slumbers sweet, 
The winged hours steal with noiseless 

feet; 
Far off the music seems to cheer 
The child's accustomed drowsy ear. 

Hymn tune and song tune, grave and 

gay. 

I Comfort him all the joyous day ; 

And, half remembered, faintly seem 
I To mingle with his happy dream. 

Poor child, for whom the summer long 
i Our dull days slip by, winged with 
! song ; 

Sleeping for half the tuneful day, 
Waking 'neath loving looks to play ; 

Whose innocent eyes unconscious see 
Nothing but mirth in misery. 
Thy mother smiles, thy sister stands 
Smiling, the tambour in her hands. 

And with the time of hard-earned rest, 
'Tis thine to press that kindly breast ; 



ODATIS. 



339 



Nor dream of all the toil, the pain, 
The weary round begun again, — 

The fruitless work, the blow, the curse, 
The hunger, the contempt, or worse ; 
The laws despite, the vague alarms, 
Which pass not those protecting arms. 

Only, as yet, 'tis thine to know 
The bright young faces all aglow. 
As down the child-encumbered street 
The music stirs the lightsome feet, 

Only to crow and smile, as yet. 

Soon shall come clouds, and cold, and 

wet ; 
And where the green leaves whisper 

now. 
The mad East flinging sleet and snow. 

And if to childhood thou shalt come — 
Childhood that knows not hearth or 

home, — 
Coarse words maybe, and looks of 

guile, 
Shall chase away that constant smile. 

Were it not better, child, than this. 
The burden of full life to miss ; 
And now, while yet the time is May, 
Amid the music pass away. 

And leave the dissonant cries of wrong 
For the immortal, perfect song ; 
And take the changeless heavenly life 
For earth's poor vagrant toil and strife ; 

And keep, within those opened skies, 

A vision of thy mother's eyes ; 

And hear those old strains, faint and 

dim. 
Grown fine, within the eternal hymn ? 



Nay, whatsoe'er our thought may deem, 
Not that is better which may seem ; 
'Twere better that thou earnest to be, 
If Fate so willed, in misery. 

What shall be, shall be— that is all ; 
To one great Will we stand and fall. 
" The Scheme hath need " — we ask not 

why. 
And in this faith we live and die. 



ODATIS, 

AN OLD LOVE-TALE. 

Chares of Mytilene, ages gone, 

When the young Alexander's conquer- 
ing star 

Flamed on the wondering world, being 
indeed 

The comrade of his arms, from the far 
East 

Brought back this story of requited 
love. 



A Prince there was of Media, next of 

blood 
To the great King Hystaspes, fair of 

form 
As brave of soul, who to his flower 

of age 
Was come, but never yet had known 

the dart 
Of Cypris, being but a soldier bold. 
Too much by trenched camps and wars' 

alarms 
Engrossed, to leave a thought for things 

of love. 

Now, at this selfsame time, by Tanais 
Omartes ruled, a just and puissant 
king. 



340 



ODATIS. 



No son was his, only one daughter fair, 
Odatis, of whose beauty and whose 

worth 
Fame filled the furthest East. Only as 

yet, 
Of all the suitors for her hand, came 

none 
Who touched her maiden heart ; but, 

fancy free, 
She dwelt unwedded, lonely as a star. 

Till one fair night in springtide, when 

the heart 
Blossoms as does the earth, Cypris, the 

Queen, 
Seeing that love is sweet for all to taste. 
And pitying these loveless parted lives, 
Deep in the sacred silence of the night. 
From out the ivory gate sent down on 

them 
A happy dream, so that the Prince had 

sight 
Of fair Odatis in her diadem 
And habit as she lived, and saw the 

charm 
And treasure of her eyes, and knew 

her name 
And country as it was ; while to the 

maid 
There came a like fair vision of the 

Prince 
Leading to fight the embattled Median 

hosts, 
Voung, comely, brave, clad in his 

panoply 
And pride of war, so strong, so fair, so 

true. 
That straight, the virgin coldness of 

her soul 
Melted beneath the vision, as the snow 
In springtime at the kisses of the 

sun. 



And when they twain awoke lo com- 
mon day 

From that blest dream, still on their 
tranced eyes 

The selfsame vision lingered. He a form 

Lovelier than all his life had known, 
more pure 

And precious than all words ; she a 
strong soul 

Vet tender, comely with the fire, the 
force 

Of youthful manhood ; saw both night 
and day. 

Nor ever from their mutual hearts the 

form 
Of that celestial vision waned nor grew 
Faint with the daily stress of common 

life. 
As do our mortal phantasies, but still 
lie, while the fiery legions clashed and 

broke, 
Saw one sweet face above the flash of 

spears ; 
She in high palace pomps, or house- 
hold tasks, 
Or 'mid the glittering courtier-crowded 

halls 
Saw one brave ardent gaze, one manly 

form. 

Now while in dreams of love these 

lovers lived 
Who never met in waking hours, who 

knew not 
Whether with unrequited love they 

burned, or whether 
In mutual yearnings blest ; the King 

Omartes, 
Grown anxious for his only girl, and 

knowing 
How blest it is to love, would bid her 

choose 



ODATIS. 



341 



Whom she would wed, and summoning 

the maid, 
With fatherly. counsels pressed on her ; 

but she : 
' ' Father, I am but young ; I prithee, 

ask not 
That I should wed ; nay, rather let me 

live 
My life within thy house. I cannot 

wed. 
I can love only one, who is the Prince 
Of Media, but I know not if indeed 
His love is his to give, or if he know 
My love for him ; only a heavenly 

vision, 
Sent in the sacred silence of the night. 
Revealed him to me as I know he is. 
Wherefore, my father, though thy will 

be law. 
Have pity on me ; let me love my love, 
If not with recompense of love, alone ; 
For I can love none else." 

Then the King said : 
"Daughter, to me thy happiness is 

life. 
And more ; but now, I pray thee, let 

my words 
Sink deep within thy mind. Thou 

canst not know 
If this strange vision through the gate 

of truth 
Came or the gate of error. Oftentimes 
The gods send strong delusions to 

ensnare 
Too credulous hearts. Thou canst not 

know, in sooth, 
If 'twas the Prince thou saw'st, or, 

were it he, 
If love be his to give ; and if it were, 
I could not bear to lose thee, for indeed 
I have no son to take my place, or pour 
Libations on my tomb, and shouldst 

thou wed 



A stranger, and be exiled from thy 

home. 
What were my life to me ? Nay, 

daughter, dream 
No more, but with some chieftain of 

my realm 
Prepare thyself to wed. With the new- 
moon 
A solemn banquet will I make, and bid 
Whate'er of high descent and generous 

youth 
Our country holds. There shalt thou 

make thy choice 
Of whom thou wilt, nor will I seek to 

bind 
Thy unfettered will ; only I fain would 

see thee 
In happy wedlock bound, and feel the 

touch 
Of childish hands again, and soothe my 

age 
With sight of thy fair offspring round 

my knees." 

Then she, because she loved her sire 

and fain 
Would do his will, left him without a 

word, 
Obedient to his hest ; but day and 

night 
The one unfading image of her dream 
Filled all her longing sight, and day 

and night 
The semblance of her Prince in all the 

pride 
And bravery of battle shone on her. 
Nor was there any strength in her to 

heal 
The wound which love had made, by 

reasonings cold. 
Or musing on the phantasies of sleep ; 
But still the fierce dart of the goddess 

burned 



ODA TIS. 



Within her soul, as when a stricken 

deer 
O'er hill and dale escaping bears with 

her 
The barb within her side ; and oft alone 
Within her secret chamber she would 

name 
The name of him she loved, and oft by 

night, 
When sleep had bound her fast, her 

pale lips formed 
The syllables of his name. Through 

the long hours, 
Waking or sleeping, were her thoughts 

on him ; 
So that the quenchless yearning long 

deferred 
Made her heart sick, and like her heart, 

her form 
Wasted, her fair cheek paled, and from 

her eyes 
Looked out the silent suffering of her 

soul. 

Now, when the day drew near which 

brought the feast,- 
One of her slaves, who loved her, 

chanced to hear 
Her sweet voice wandering in dreams, 

and caught 
The Prince's name ; and, being full of 

grief 
And pity for her pain, and fain to aid 
The gentle girl she loved, made haste 

to send 
A messenger to seek the Prince and tell 

him 
How he was loved, and when the feast 

should be. 
And how the King would have his 

daughter wed. 
But to the Princess would she breathe 

no word 



Of what was done, till, almost on the 

eve 
Of the great feast, seeing her wan and 

pale 
And all unhappy, falling at her knees. 
She, with a prayer for pardon, told her 

all. 

But when the Princess heard her, virgin 
shame — 

Love drawing her and Pride of Maiden- 
hood 

hi opposite ways till all distraught was 
she — 

Flushed her pale cheek, and lit her lan- 
guid gaze. 

Yet since she knew that loving thought 
alone 

Prompted the deed, being soft and 
pitiful, 

She bade her have no fear, and though 
at first 

Unwilling, by degrees a newborn hope 

Chased all her shame away, and once 
again 

A long unwonted rose upon her cheek 

Bloomed, and a light long vanished 
fired her eyes. 

Meanwhile upon the plains in glorious 

war 
The brave Prince led his conquering 

hosts ; but still, 
Amid the shock of battle and the crash 
Of hostile spears, one vision filled his 

soul. 
Amid the changes of the hard-fought 

day, 
Throughout the weary watches of the 

night. 
The dream, the happy dream, returned 

again ; 
Always the selfsame vision of a maid 



ODATIS. 



343 



Fairer than earthly, filled his eyes and 
took 

The savour from the triumph, ay, and 
touched 

The warrior's heart with an unwonted 
ruth, 

So that he shrank as never yet before 

From every day's monotony of blood, 

And saw with unaccustomed pain the 
sum 

Of death and woe, and hopeless shat- 
tered lives, 

Because a softer influence touched his 
soul. 

Till one night, on the day before the feast 
Which King Omartes destined for his 

peers, 
While now his legions swept their con- 
quering way 



And faded in the dawn ; the, hot red 

sun 
Leapt from the plain ; noon faded into 

eve; 
Again the same stars lit the lucid night ; 
And still, with scarce a pause, those 

fierce hoofs dashed 
Across the curved plain onward, till he 

saw 
Far off the well-lit palace casements 

gleam 
Wherein his love was set. 

Then suddenly 
He checked his panting team, the rapid 

wheels 
Ceased, and his mail and royal garb he 

hid 
Beneath a rich robe such as nobles use 
By Tanais ; and to the lighted hall 
He passed alone, bidding his charioteer 
A hundred leagues or more from Tanais, | Await him in the darkness by the gate. 
There came the message from the slave, ! 



and he 
Within his tent, after the well-fought 

day. 
Resting with that fair image in his eyes, 
Woke suddenly to know that he was 

loved. 

Tiien, in a moment, putting from him 

sleep 
And well-earned rest, he bade his 

charioteer 
Yoke to his chariot three unbroken colts 
Which lately o'er the endless Scythian 

plain 
Careered, untamed ; and, through the 

sleeping camp. 
Beneath the lucid aspect of the night. 
He sped as speeds the wind. The 

great stars hung 
Like lamps above the plain ; the great 

stars sank 



Now, when the Prince drew near the 

vestibule, 
The feast long time had sped, and all 

the guests 
Had eaten and drunk their fill ; and he 

unseen. 
Through the close throng of serving men 

and maids 
Around the door,like some belated guest 
To some obscurer station slipped, and 

took 
The wine -cup with the rest, who mar- 
velled not 
To see him come, nor knew him ; only 

she 
Who sent the message whispered him 

a word : 
*' Have courage; she is there, and 

Cometh soon. 
Be brave ; she loves thee only ; watch 

and wait." 



344 



ODATIS. 



Even then the King Omartes, where he 
sate 

On high among his nobles, gave com- 
mand 

To summon from her maiden chamber 
forth 

The Princess. And obedient to the call, 

Robed in pure white, clothed round 
with maiden shame, 

Full of vague hope and tender yearning 
love, 

To the high royal throne Odatis came. 

And when the Prince beheld the maid, 

and saw 
The wonder v/hich so long had filled 

his soul— 
His vision of the still night clothed with 

Hfe 
And breathing earthly air — and marked 

the heave 
Of her white breast, and saw the tell- 
tale flush 
Crimson her cheek with maiden 

modesty, 
Scarce could his longing eager arms 

forbear 
To clasp the virgin round, so fair she 

seemed. 
But, being set far down from where the 

King 
Sat high upon the dais 'midst the crowd 
Of eager emulous faces looking loVe, 
None marked his passionate gaze, or 

stretched-forth hands ; 
Till came a pause, which hushed the 

deep-drawn sigh 
Of admiration, as the jovial King, 
Full tender of his girl, but flushed with 

wine, 
Spake thus to her : 

"Daughter, to this high feast 
Are bidden all the nobles of our land. 



Now, therefore, since to wed is good, 

and life 
To the unwedded woman seems a load 
Which few may bear, and none desire, 

I prithee, 
This jewelled chalice taking, mingle 

wine 
As well thou knowest, and the honeyed 

draught 
Give to some noble youth of those thou 

seest 
Along the well- ranged tables, knowing 

well 
That him to whom thou givest, thou 

shalt wed. 
I fetter not thy choice, girl. I grow old ; 
I have no son to share the weight of rule, 
And fain would see thy children ere I 

die." 

Then, with 'a kiss upon her blushing 

cheek. 
He gave the maid the cup. The cressets' 

light 
Fell on the jewelled chalice, which 

gave back 
A thousand answering rays. Silent she 

stood 
A moment, half in doubt, then down 

the file 
Of close-ranked eager faces flushed with 

hope, 
And eyes her beauty kindled more than 

wine. 
Passed slow, a breathing statue. Her 

white robe 
Among the purple and barbaric gold 
Showed like the snowy plumage of a 

dove, 
As down the hall, the cup within her 

hands. 
She, now this way regarding and now 

that, 



ODATIS. 



3)5 



Passed, with a burning blush upon her 

cheek ; 
And on each youthful noble her large 

eyes 
Rested a moment only, icy cold, 
Though many indeed were there, brave, 

fair to see, 
Fit for a maiden's love ; but never at 

all 
The one o'ermastering vision of her 

dream 
Rose on her longing eyes, till hope 

itself 
Grew faint, and, ere she gained the 

end, she turned 
Sickening to where, along the opposite 

wall. 
Sat other nobles young and brave as 

those, 
But not the fated vision of her dream. 

Meanwhile the Prince, who 'mid the 

close-set throng 
Of humbler guests was hidden, saw her 

come 
And turn ere she had marked him, and 

again 
Down the long line of princely revellers 
Pass slow as in a dream ; and all his 

soul 
Grew sick with dread lest haply, seeing 

not 
The one expected face, and being 

meek 
And dutiful, and reverent to her sire, 
She in despair might make some sudden 

choice 
And leave him lovelorn. And where'er 

she went 
He could not choose but gaze, as oft in 

sleep 
Some dreadful vision chains us that we 

fail 



To speak or move, though to be still is 

death. 
And once he feared that she had looked 

on him 
And passed, "and once he thought he 

saw her pause 
By some tall comely youth ; and then 

she reached 
The furthest wall, and as she turned 

her face 
And came toward him again tt^ where 

the jars 
Of sweet wine stood for mingling, with 

a bound 
His heart went out to her ; for now her 

cheek 
As pale and lifeless as the icy moon, 
And the dead hope within her eyes, 

and pain 
Of hardly conquered tears, made sure 

his soul, 
Knowing that she was his. 

But she, dear heart, 
Being sick indeed with love, and in 

despair. 
Yet reverencing her duty to her sire, 
Turned half-distraught to fill the fated 

cup 
And with it mar her life. 

But as she stood 
Alone within the vestibule and poured 
The sweet wine forth, slow, trembling, 

blind with tears, 
A voice beside her whispered, " Love, 

I am here ! " 
And looking round her, at her side she 

saw, 
A youthful mailed form— the festal robe 
flung backward, and the face, the 

mouth, the eyes 
Whereof the vision tilled her night and 

day. 



346 



IN WILD WALES. 



Then straight, without a word, with 

one deep sigh, 
She held the wine-cup forth. lie 

poured out first 
Libation to the goddess, and the rest 
Drained at a draught, and cast his 

arms round her, 
And down the long-drawn sounding 

colonnade 
vSnatched her to where without, beneath 

the dawn. 
The brave steeds waited and the 

charioteer. 
I lis robe he round her threw ; they saw 

the flare 
Of torches at the gate ; they heard the 

shouts 
Of hot pursuit grow fainter ; till at 

last. 
In solitude, across the rounding plain 
They flew through waking day, until 

they came 
To Media, and were wed. And soon 

her sire, 
Knowing their love, consented, and 

they lived 
Long happy lives ; such is the might of 

Love. 



That is the tale the soldier from the 

East, 
Chares of Mytilene, ages gone. 
Told oftentimes at many a joyous feast 
In Hellas ; and he said that all the 

folk 
In Media loved it, and their painters 

limned 
The story in the temples of their gods. 
And in the stately palaces of kings, 
Because they reverenced the might of 

Love. 



IN WILD WALES. 

I. — At the Eisteddfod. 

The close-ranked faces rise. 

With their watching, eager eyes. 

And the banners and the mottoes blaze 

above ; 
And without, on either hand, 
The eternal mountains stand, 
And the salt sea river ebbs and flows 

again, 
And through the thin-drawn bridge the 

wandering winds complain. 

Here is the Congress met. 

The bardic senate set. 

And young hearts flutter at the voice of 

fate ; 
All the fair August day 
Song echoes, harj^ers play. 
And on the unaccustomed ear the 

strange 
Penillion rise and fall through change 

and counter-change. 

Oh Mona, land of song ! 

Oh mother of Wales ! how long 

From thy dear shores an exile have 1 

been ! 
Still from thy lonely plains, 
Ascend the old sweet strains, 
And at the mine, or plough, or humble 

home. 
The dreaming peasant hears diviner 

music come. 



This innocent, peaceful strife, 

This struggle to fuller life. 

Is still the one delight of Cymric souls — 

Swell, blended rhythms ! still 

The gay pavilions fill. 



LV WILD WALES. 



347 



Soar, oh young voices, resonant and 

fair ; 
Still let the sheathed sword gleam 

above the bardic chair. 
* * * « 

The Menai ebbs and flows, 
And the song-tide wanes and goes, 
And the singers and the harp-players 

are dumb ; 
The eternal mountains rise I 

Like a cloud upon the skies, 
And my heart is full of joy for the 

songs that are still, 
The deep sea and the soaring hills, and 

the steadfast Omnipotent "Will. 

II.— At the Meeting Field. 

Here is the complement of what I saw 
When late I sojourned in the halls of 
song, 
The greater stronger P'orce, the higher 
Law, 
Of those which carry Cymric souls 
along, 1 

I 

No dim Cathedral's fretted aisles were 
there. 
No gay pavilion fair, with banners 

hung : 
The eloquent pleading voice, the 
deep hymns sung, 
The bright sun, and the clear un- 
fettered air. 

i 

These were the only ritual, this the 
fane, 
A poor fane doubtless and a feeble 

rite 
For those who find religion in dim 
light, 
Strange vestments, incensed air, and 
blazoned pane. 



But the rapt crowd, the reverent mute 
throng. 
When the vast listening 'semi-circle 
round. 
Rang to the old man's voice serenely 
strong. 
Or swept along in stormy bursts of 
sound. 

Where found we these in temples made 
with hands ? 
Where, the low moan which marks 

the awakened soul ? 
Where, this rude eloquence whose 
strong waves roll 
Deep waters, swift to bear their Lord's 
commands ? 

Where found we these? 'neath what 
high fretted dome ? 
I know not. I have knelt 'neath 
many, yet 
Have heard few words so rapt and 
burning come, 
Nor marked so many eyes divinely 
wet. 

As here I knew — " What will you do, 
oh friends. 
When life ebbs fast and the dim liglit 
is low. 
When sunk in gloom the day of plea- 
sure ends. 
And the night cometh, and your 
being runs slow, 

And nought is left you of your revel- 
ries, 
Vour drunken nights, your wanton- 
ness, your ill — 
And lo ! the last dawn rises cold and 
chill. 
Audio ! the lightning of All-seeing eyes, 



348 



SUFFRAGES. 



What will you do?" And when the j They are starved, they are sick, they 
low voice ceased, 
And from the gathered thousands 

surged the hymn, 
Some strong power choked my voice, 
my eyes grew dim. 
I knew that old man eloquent, a priest. 



There is a consecration not of man. 



die. 
And there is none to help or heed ; 
They come with a great and bitter 

cry, 
They hardly dare to whisper, as they 

plead ; 
And there is none to hear them, God or 

man ; 



Nor given by laid -on hands nor j And it is little indeed that all our pity 

acted rite, i can. 

A priesthood fixed since the firm earth 

began, 
A dedication to the eye of Light, 



And this is of them. What the form 
of creed 
I care not, hardly the fair tongue I 
know, 
But this I know, that when the con- 
course freed 
From that strong influence, went 
sedate and slow, 

I thought when on the Galilean shore 
By the Great Priest the multitudes 
were led, 
The bread of life, miraculously more, 
Sufficed for all who came, and they 
were fed. 



SUFFRAGES. 

"Surely," said a voice, "O Lord, 

Thy judgments 
Are dreadful and hard to understand. 
Thy laws which Thou mad est, they 

withstand Thee, 
They stand against Thee and Thy 

command : 
Thy poor, they are with us evermore ; 
They suffer terrible things and sore ; 



What, and shall I be moved to tears, 
As I sit in this still chamber here alone, 
By the pity of it,— the childish lives 

that groan. 
The miseries and the sorrows, the hopes 

and the fears 
Of this wonderful legend of life, that is 

one and the same 
Though it differ in weal and in happi- 
ness, honour and fame, — 
Shall I turn, who am no more than a 

worm, to Thee, 
From the pity of it — the want, the 

misery, 
And with strong yearnings beat, and 

rebellions wild. 
Seeing death written, and pain, in the 

face of a child ; — 
And yet art Thou unmoved ! 
Ah, Lord, if Thou sawest surely ! — and 

yet Thou dost see ; 
And if Thou knewest indeed !— and 

yet all things are clear to Thee. 

For, Lord, of a truth Thy great ones, 
W'ho have not their wealth of their own 

desert. 
Live ever equal lives and sure, 
And are never vexed nor suffer hurt. 
But through long untroubled years 

endure 



SUFFRAGES. 



349 



Until they join Thee, and are in bliss ; 
Or, maybe, are carried away from 

Thee, and miss 
Thy Face, which is too pure for them 

to see, 
And are thenceforth in misery : 
But, nevertheless, upon the earth 
They come to neither sorrow nor 

dearth. 
They are great, and they live out their 

lives, and Thou lettest them be ; 
Thou dost not punish them here, if 

they despise 
Thy poor and pass them by with averted 

eyes. 
They are strong and mighty, and never 

in danger to fall ; 
But Thou, Lord, art mighty and canst, 

and yet carest not at all. 

But wherefore is it that such things 

are ; — 
That want and famine, and blood and 

war 
Are everywhere, and do prevail? 
And wherefore is it the same monoton- 
ous tale 
Is ever told by the lips of men ? 
For there is hardly so hard a heart 
In the breast of a man who has taken 

his part 
In the world, and has little children 

around his knees. 
But is filled with great love for them as 

Thou art for these, 
And would give up all for their good, 

and is vexed day and night 
With fatherly doubts and fears and 

yearnings for right. 
And grows sick, if evil come nigh them 

body or soul, , 

And yet is but a feeble thing, without j 

strength or control. I 



But Thou art almighty for good ; yet 

Thy plagues, they come, 
Hunger and want arrd disease, in a 

terrible sum ; 
And the poor fathers waste, and are 

stricken with slow decay ; 
And the children fall sick, and are 

starving, day after day ; 
And the hospital wards are choked ; 

and the fire and the flood 
Vex men still, and the leaguered cities 

are red with blood. 

Ay, yet not the less, O Lord, 
I know Thou art just and art good in- 
deed. 
This is it that doth perplex my thought. 
So that I rest not content in any creed. 
If I knew that Thou wert the Lord of 

111, 
Then were I untouched still, 
And, if I would, might worship at Thy 

shrine ; 
Or if my mind might prove no Will 

Divine 
Inspired the dull mechanical reign of 

Law. 
But now, while Thou art surely, and 

art good. 
And wouldst Thy creatures have in 

happiness, 
AKvay the sword, the plague prevail 

no less, 
Not less, not less Thy laws are based 

in blood. 
And such deep inequalities of lot 
Confuse our thought, as if Thy hand 

were not. 
All blessings, health and wealth and 

honours spent 
On some unworthy sordid instrument ; 
Thy highest gift of genius flung away 
On some vile thing of meanest clay, 



3SO 



SUFFRAGES. 



Who fouls the ingrate lips, touched 

with Thy fire, 
With worse than common mire : 
How should I fail alone, when all things 

groan, 
To let my weak voice take a pleading 

tone ! 
How should I speak a comfortable 

word 
When such things are, O Lord ! " 

This is the cry that goes up for ever 
To Heaven from weak and striving 

souls : 
But the calm Voice makes answer to 

them never ; 
The undelaying chariot onward rolls. 

But another voice : "O Lord of all, I 

Ijless Thee, 
I bless Thee and give thanks for all. 
Thou hast kept me from my childhood 

up, 
Thou hast not let me fall. 
All the fair days of my youth 
Thou wast beside, me and Thy truth. 
I bless Thee that Thou didst withhold 
The blight of fame, the curse of gold ; 
Because Thou hast spared my soul as 

yet, 
Amid the wholesome toil of each swift 

day, 
The tumult and the fret 
Which carry worldly lives from Thee 

away. 
I thank Thee for the sorrows Thou hast 

sent, 
Being in all things content 
To see in every loss a greater gain, 
A joy in every pain ; 
The losses I have known, since still I 

know 
Lives, hidden with Thee, are and grow. 



I do not know, I cannot tell, 

How it may be, yet death and pain are 
well : 

I know that Thou art good and mild, 

Though sickness take and break the 
helpless child ; 

'Twas Thou, none else, that gav'st the 
mother's love, 

And even her anguish came from Thee 
above. 

I am content to be that which Thou 
wilt : 

Tho' humble be my pathway and ob- 
scure, 

Vet from all stain of guilt 

Keep Thou me pure. 

Or if Thy evil still awhile must find 

Its seat within my mind. 

Be it as Thou wilt, I am not afraid. 

And for the world Thy hand has made, 
Thy beautiful world, so wondrous fair : 
Thy mysteries of dawn, Thy cloudless 

days ; 
Thy mountains, soaring high through 

Thy pure air ; 
Thy glittering sea, sounding perpetual 

praise ; 
Thy starlit skies, whence worlds un- 
numbered gaze ; 
Thy earth, which in Thy bounteous 

summer-tide 
Is clad in flowery robes and glorified ; 
Thy still primeval forests, deeply stirred 
By Thy great winds as by an unknown 

word ; 
Thy fair, light-winged creatures, blithe 

and free ; 
Thy dear brutes living, dying, silently : 
Shall I from them no voice to praise 

Thee find ? 
Thy praise is hymned by every balmy 

wind 



LOOK OUT, O LOVE—CLYT^MNESTRA IN PARIS. 351 



That wanders o'er a wilderness of 

flowers ; 
By every happy brute which asks not 

why, 
But rears its brood and is content to die. 
From Thee has come whatever good is 

ours ; — 
The gift of love that doth exalt the 

race ; 
The gift of childhood with its nameless 

grace ; 
The gift of age which slow through ripe 

decay, 
Like some fair fading sunset dies away ; 
The gift of homes happy with honest 

Avealth, 
And fair lives flowering in unbroken 

health, — 
All these are Thine, and the good gifts 

of brain, 
Which to heights greater than the earth 

can gain, 
And can our little minds jDroject to 

Thee, 
Through Infinite Space — across Eter- 
nity. 
For these I praise Thy name ; but 

above all 
The precious gifts Thy bounteous hand 

lets fall, 
I praise Thee for the power to love the 

Right, 
Though Wrong awhile show fairer to 

the sight ; 
The power to sin, the dreadful power 

to choose 
The evil portion and the good re- 
fuse ; 
And last, when all the power of ill is 

spent, 
The power to seek Thy face and to 

repent." 



This is the answering cry that goes for 

ever 
To Heaven from blest untroubled souls : 
But the calm Voice makes answer to 

them never ; 
The undelaying chariot onward rolls. 



LOOK 0U1\ O LOVE, 

Look out, O Love, across the sea 
A soft breeze fans the summer nigl 
The low waves murmur lovingly, 
And lo ! the beacon's fitful light. 



Some day perchance, when I am gone, 
And muse by far-off tropic seas, 
You may be gazing here alone, 
On starlit waves and skies like these. 

Or perhaps together, you and I, 
Rapt each in each, no other by, 
Shall watch again that fitful flame, 
And know that we are not the same. 

Or maybe we shall come no more. 
But prisoned on some unknown shore, 
In dreams shall see that light again, 
And hear that starlit sea complain. 



CLYTy^.MNESTRA IN PARIS. 

I SEEMED to pace the dreadful corridors 
Of a still foreign prison, blank and 

white, 
j And in a bare and solitary cell 
To find a lonely woman, soft of voice 
And mild of eye, who never till life's 

end 
Should pass those frowning gates, Me- 

thought I asked her 



352 



CLYTMMNESTRA IN PARIS. 



The story of her crime, arid what hard 
fate 

Left her, so gentle seeming, fettered 
there, 

Hopeless, a murderess at whose very 
name 

Men shuddered still. And to my ques- 
tioning 

Afethought that dreadful soul made 
answer thus : 

" Yes, I suppose I liked him, though I 
know not ; 

T hardly know what love may be ; how 
should I ? — 

I a young girl wedded without my will, 

As is our custom here, to a man old, 

Not perhaps in years, but dark expe- 
riences. 

What had we two in common, that 
worn man, 

And I, an untrained girl ? It was not 
strange 

If when that shallow boy, with his bold 
tongue. 

And his gay eyes, and curls, and bud- 
ding beard, 

Flattered me, I was weak. I think all 
women 

Are weak sometimes, and overprone to 
love 

When the man is young, and straight, 
and 'twas a triumph 

To see the disappointed envious jades 

Wince as he passed them carelessly, 
nor heeded 

Their shallow wiles to trap him, — ay, 
a triumph ! 

And that was all ; I hardly know, in- 
deed, 

If it was love that drove, or only pride 

To hold what others grudged me. Vain 
he was, 



And selfish, and a coward, as you shall 

hear. 
Handsome enough, I grant you, to 

betray 
A stronger soul than mine. Indeed, I 

think. 
He never cared for me nor I for him 
(For there were others after him) : I 

knew it. 
Then chiefest, when our comedy of life 
Was turning at the last to tragedy. 

"Now that I was unfaithful, a false 

wife, 
I value not men's sneers at a pin's 

point, 
We have a right to love and to be 

loved ; 
Not the mere careless tolerance of the 

spouse 
Who has none to give. True, if I were 

a nun, 
Vov/ed to a white and cloistered life, no 

doubt 
'Twere otherwise. They tell me there 

are women 
Who are so rapt by thoughts of the 

poor, of churches. 
Of public ends, of charity, of schools, 
Of Heaven knows what, they live their 

lives untouched 
By passion ; but for us, who are but 

women, 
Not bred on moonlight, made of 

common clay, 
Untrained for aught but common bour- 
geois life, 
Life is no mystical pale procession 

winding 
Its way from the cradle to the grave, but 

rather 
A thing of hot swift flushes, fierce de- 

lights 



CLYT/EMNESTRA IN PARIS. 



353 



Good eating, dances, wines, and all the 

rest. 
When the occasion comes. I never 

loved him, 
I tell you ; therefore, maybe, did no 

sin. 

*' Rut when this fellow must presume to 

boast. 
Grow cold, have scruples for his soul 

and mine. 
And turn to other younger lives, and 

pass 
My door to-day with this one, then with 

that, 
And "all the gossips of the quarter 

sneered. 
And knew I was deserted, do you think 

it 
A wonder that my eyes, opened at last, 
Saw all the folly and the wickedness 
(If sweet it were, where were the 

wickedness ?) 
Which bore such bitter fruit ? Think 

you it strange 
That I should turn for aid, ay, and re- 
venge. 
To my wronged spouse — if wronged he 

be, indeed, 
Who doth consent as he did ? When I 

told him. 



Another for my love ; but at the last, 
Long labour, feigned reports, the 

neighbours' sneers, 
These drove him at the last, good easy 

man. 
To such a depth of hatred, that my 

task 
Grew lighter, and my heart. 

He bade me write 
Loving appeals, recalling our past 

days 
Together ; and I wrote them, using all 
The armoury of loving cozening words 
With which craft arms us women : but 

in vain, 
For whether some new love engrossed, 

or whether 
He wearied of me and my love, I know 

not. 
Only, in spite of all, no answer came. 

"At length, since I could get no word 

from him, 
My husband bade me write — or was 

it I 
Who thought of the device ? Pray 

you believe me, 
I would speak nothing else than the 

whole truth. 
But these sad dreadful deeds confuse 

the brain. 



Amid my tears, he made but small I Well, perhaps 'twas I, who knew his 

weakness well ; 
I do not know, but somehow it came to 

pass 
I wrote a crafty letter, begging of him, 
By all our former kindness, former 

wrong. 
If for the last time, recognizing well 
That all was done between us ever- 
more. 
We might, for one last evening, meet 
and part. 

2 A 



pretence 
Of jealousy at all ; only his pride 
Was perhaps a little wounded. And 

indeed 
It took such long confessions, such 

grave pain 
Of soul, such agony of remorse of 

mine 
To move him but a little, that I grew 
So weary of it all, it almost checked 
My penitence, and left me free to choose 



354 



CLYT/EMNESTRA IN PARIS. 



And, knowing he was needy, and his 

greed,— 
'If only he would come,' I wrote to 

him, 
* I had some secret savings, and 

desired — 
For what need comes there closer than 

a friend's ? — 
To help him in his trouble.' 

Swift there came — 
The viper ! — hypocritical words of love: 
Ves, he would come, for the old love 

still lived. 
He knew it, ah, too well ; not all the 

glamour 
Of other eyes and lips could ever quench 
The fire of that mad passion. He 

would come. 
Loving as ever, longing for the day. 

"Now when we had the answer, 

straight we three — 
My husband and myself, and his weak 

brother, 
^Yhose daughter to her first communion 

went 
That very day, — and I, too, took the 

Host 
As earnest of changed life, — we three, 

I say, 
At a little feast we made to celebrate 
The brothers reconciled (in families 
There come dissensions, as you know), 

devised 
His punishment. We hired, in a still 

suburb, 
A cottage standing backward from the 

street, 
Beyond an avenue of sycamores ; 
A lonely place, unnoticed. Day by 

day 
^Ye went, we three together— for I 

feared 



Lest, if there were no third, the strength 

of youth 
Might bear my husband down — we 

went to make 
All needful preparations. First we 

spread 
Over all the floor a colour like to blood, 
For deep's the stain of blood, and what 

shall cleanse it ? 
Also, my husband, from a neighbour- 
ing wood, 
Had brought a boar-trap, sharp with 

cruel knives 
And jagged teeth, to close with a snap 

and tear 
The wild beast caught within it. But 

I deemed 
The risk too great, the prey might slip 

away ; 
Therefore, that he might meet his 

punishment. 
And to prevent the sound of cries and 

groans, 
My husband fashioned for his lips a 

And on the mantel left it, and the 

means 
To strike a light. And being thus 

prepared, 
We three returned to Paris ; there long 

time 
We sate eating and drinking of the 

best, 
As those do who have taken a resolve 
Whence no escape is, save to do and 

die. 

*' Then the two men went back and 

left me there, 
With all my part to do. It was an 

hour 
Or more l)efore the time when my poor 

dupe 



CLYT/RMNESTRA IN PARIS. 



(55 



Had fixed to meet me. Wandering 

thus alone 
Through the old streets, seeing the 

common sights 
Of every day, the innocent child-faces 



Till lo the hour was come when 1 

should go 
To meet him for the last time. 

" When we left 



Homing from school, so like my little r^^^ ^j^^ ^^^ ^^^^^^^ ^j^^ ^^^,^^^ ^^^^ 

night 
Was falling on the quiet village street ; 
There was a scent of hawthorn on the 

air 



ones, 
I seemed to lose all count of time. At 

length, 
Because it was the Ascension Feast, 

there came 



^ , . ^ , , As we passed on with femt of lovmg 

A waft of music from the open doors i 

_. , , , ^ . . , words, — 

Of a near church, and, entering in, 1 ^i ^ 4 i ti 1 ^ ^i • ^ i 

' ' s ' Passed slow like lovers to the appointed 

found , ^ 

The incensed air, all I remembered 1 „ ^\...^^^ c • 1 ^ 1 

' 1 rassed to the place of punishment and 

I doom. 

The lights, the soaring chants, the ' 

kneeling crowds, ! 

When I believed and knelt. They I " ^^^^ when we reached the darkling 

seemed to soothe I avenue 

My half bewildered fancy, and I | Of sycamores, which to the silent 

thought — 



What if a woman, who mayhap had 

sinned 
But lightly, wishing to repair her 

wrong. 



house 
Led through a palpable gloom, I felt 

him shudder 
With some blind vague presentiment 

of ill, 



Andbound thereby to some dark daring I ^nd he would go no further; but I 



deed 
Of peril, should come here, and kneel 

awhile, 
And ask a blessing for the deed, of 

her 



clung 
Around him close, laughed all his fear 

to scorn. 
Whispered words in his ear, and step 
by step, 
Who is Heaven's Queen and knows our ^^ y s^"^ on reparation being bent, 

weaknesses j Drew him reluctant to the fated door 

Iking herself a woman ! So I knelt Where lay my spouse in ambush, and 

In worship, and the soaring voices 'i>\y\n death. 

clear 
And the dim heights and suffrage-laden i " I think I hear the dreadful noise of 

air the key, 

Filled me with comfort for my soul, and Turning within the disused lock, the 

nerved hall 

My failing heart, and winged time's | Breathing a false desertion, the loud 
lagging flight, I sound 



/ 



35^ 



CLYTyEMNESTRA IN PARIS 



Of both our footsteps echoing through 

the house. 
I could not choose but tremble. Yet 

I knew 
'Twas but a fooHsh weakness. Then 

I struck 
A match, and in the burst of sudden 

light 
I saw the ruddy cheek grown ashy 

pale, 
And as he doffed his hat, I marked the 

curls 
On his white forehead, and the boyish 

grace 



I heard low cries of rage, and knew 

despair 
And youth had nerved the unarmed in 

such sort 
As made the conflict doubtful. Then 

I rushed 
I Between them, threw my arms around 

him, clogged 
His force and held him fast, crying the 

while, 
' Wretch, would you kill my husband ! ' 

— held him fast. 
As coils a serpent round the escaping 

deer, 



Which hung around him still, and al- } Until my husband, hissing forth his 



most felt 



hate, 



Compassion. Then the darkness came ' Villain, I pierce thy heart as thou 



agam. 
And hid him, and I groped to find his 

hand, 
Clutched it with mine, and led him to 

the door. 

"But when within the darkling room 

we were 
Where swift death waited him, not 

dalliance. 
Three times my trembling fingers failed 

to wake 



hast mme,' 
Stabbed through and through his heart. 

"But oh, but oh 
The lonely road, beneath the dreadful 

stars ! 
To the swift stream, we three — nay, 

nay, we four — 
One on the child's poor carriage 

covered o'er, 
And three who drew him onv/ard, on, 

the road, 



The twinkling light which scarce could ! That dead thing, having neither eye 



pierce the gloom 
Which hid my husband. Oh, to see 

his face 
When the dark aspect and the furious 

eyes 
Glared out on him ! ' I am lost ! ' he 

cried, ' I am lost ! ' 



nor ear. 

Which late was full of life, and strife, 
and hate. 

On that dumb silence, came no way- 
farer, 

And once the covering which concealed 
our load 



A.nd then the sound of swift and j Slipped down, and left the ghastly 



desperate fight 



blood-stained thing 



And a death struggle. Listening, as I i Open to prying eyes, but none were 



stood 



there ; 



Without, with that mean craven hound, ! And then the darkling river, and the 



l)roth( 



sound 



CLYIVEMNESTRA IN FAR IS. 



357 



When, with lead coiled around it, the 

dead corpse 
Sank with a sullen plunge within the 

deep, 
And took with it the tokens of our crime. 

" Then with a something of relief, as 

those 
Who have passed through some great 

peril all unharmed, 
We went and burned the blood-stained 

signs of death. 
And left the dreadful place, and once 

more sped 
To Paris and to sleep, till the new day. 
Now risen to high noon, touched our 

sad dreams. 



The petty crafts which make the 

pleader's art, 
The dolts who sit in judgment, when 

the one 
Who knows all must be silent ; but you 

know not 
The intolerable burden of suspense. 
The hard and hateful gaze of hungry 

eyes 
Which gloat upon your suffering. W^hen 

doom came 
It was well to know the worst, and 

hear no more 
The half-forgotten horrors. But I 

think 
The sense of common peril, common 

wrong, 



Knits us in unity indissoluble, 
"And that day, since we could not \ Closer than years of converse. When 

work as yet, | my husband, 

We to the Picture Gallery went, and | Braving his doom, embraced me as he 



there 
We took our fill of nude voluptuous 

limbs. 
Mingled with scenes of horror bathed 

in blood. 
Such as our painters love. So week 

by week. 
Careless and unafraid, we spent our 

days. 
Till when that sad night faded ; swift 

there rose. 
Bursting the weights that kept it, the 

pale corpse, 
A damning witness from the deep, and 

brought 
The dreadful past again, and with it 

doom. 



went : 
' Wife, so thou live I care not,' all my 

heart 
Went out to him for a moment, and I 

cried, 
' Let me die too, my guilt is more than 

his.' 

"Some quibble marred the sentence, 

and once more 
The miserable tale was told afresh : 
Once more I stood before those hungry 

eyes. 
And when 'twas done we went forth 

slaves for life. 
Both with an equal doom, and ever since 
We suffer the same pains in solitude, 
Slaves fettered fast, whom only death 

sets free. 



" Vou know how we were tried, and 

how things went, j 

The cozening speeches, the brow-beat- "That is my tale told truly. Now you 

ing judge, I know, 



358 



CLYTyEMNESlRA IN PARIS. 



Sir, of what fashion I am made : a 


Down that dark passage, and I seem to 


woman 


see 


Gentle, you see, and mild eyed. If 1 


The dreadful stare of those despairing 


sinned 


eyes. 


Surely there was temptation, and I 


And then there sounds, a plunge in 


sought 


the deep, and I 


Such reparation as I could. There are 


Lie shivering till the dawn. I have no 


here 


comfort. 


Tigresses, and not women, black of 


Except the holy Mass ; for see you, 


brow 


sir. 


And strong of arm, who have struck 


I was devout until they scoffed at me. 


down or stabbed 


And now I know there is a hell indeed. 


Husband, or child, or lover, not as I, 


Since this place is on earth. I do not 


But driven by rage and jealousy, and 


think 


drink. 


I have much cause to fear death, should 


These creatures of the devil, as I pass 


it come ; 


I see them shrink and shudder. The 


For whoso strives for Duty, all the 


young priest 


Saints 


Of the prison, a well-favoured lad he 


And the Madonna needs must love. 


is, 


and I, 


When I confessed to him bore on his 


I have done what penitence could do ; 


brow 


and here 


Cold drops of agony ; the Sister grew 


What have I of reward ?— my children 


So pale at what I told her, that I 


taken 


thought 


As clean from me as if they were dead 


She was like to swoon away, until I 


indeed, 


soothed her. 


Trained to forget their mother. Sir, I 


Poor wretch, she has much to learn ; 


see, 


and here I am. 


Beyond these shallow phantasms of 


And shall be till my hair turns grey, 


life; 


my eyes 


And this I hold, that one whose con- 


Grow dim, and I have clean forgotten 


science shows 


all 


As clear as mine must needs be 


That brought me here, and all my 


justified. 


former life 


I love the holy Mass, and take the 


Fades like a once-heard tale. In the 


Host 


long nights, 


As often as I may, being of good 


As I lie alone in my cell like any 


heart. 


nun. 


For what was it she did in Holy Writ, 


I wake sometimes with a start, and 


The Kenite's wife of old? I do not 


seem to hear 


read 


That rusty lock turn, and those echoing 


That women shrunk from her because 


feet 


she drave 



CLYT/EMNESTRA IN PARIS. 



359 



The nail through her guest's brain . 

nay, rather, praise 
Was hers : yet was she not betrayed 

as I, 
Nor yet repentant of her wrong and 

seeking 
To do what good was left. But look 

you, sir, 
If I was once repentant, that is past : 
I hate those black-browed women, who 

turn from me, 
That smooth priest and that poor fool 

with her cross, 
And that strange pink-and-whiteness 

of the nun. 
And sometimes when they come I let 

them hear 
Such things as make the pious hypocrites 

turn 
And 'cross themselves. And for that 

tigress crew. 
If I might only steal to their cells at 

night 
With a knife, I would teach them, 

what it is to stab ; 
Or even without one, that these little 

hands 
Can strangle with the best. 

Ah, you draw back, 
You too are shocked forsooth. Listen, 

you wretch, 
Who are walking free while I am 

prisoned here : 
How many thoughts of murder have 

you nursed 
Within your miserable heart ! how 

many 
Low, foul desires which would degrade 

the brute ! 
Do you think I do not know you men ? 

What was it 
That kept your hands unstained, but 
accident ? — 



Accident, did I say ? or was it rather 
Cowardice, that you feared the stripes 

of the law, 
And did not dare to do your will or 

die?— 
Accident ! then, I pray you, where the 

merit 
To have abstained? Or if you claim, 

indeed. 
Such precious self-restraint as keeps 

your feet 
From straying, where the credit ? since 

it came 
A gift as much unearned as other's ill, 
Which lurked for them a little tiny 

peck 
Hidden in the convolutions of the 

brain. 
To grow with their growth, and wax 

with their years, and leave 
The wretch at last in Hell. Do you 

deem it just, 
The Potter with our clay upon His 

wheel 
Should shape it in such form ? I love 

not God, 
Being such ; I hate Him rather : I, 

His creature, 
I do impugn His justice or His power, 
I will not feign obedience — I, a 

woman, 
Of a soft nature, who would love my 

love. 
And my child, and nothing more ; who 

am, instead, 
A murderess, as they tell me, pining 

here 
Li hell before my time." 

Even as she spake 
I seemed to be again as when I saw 
The murderess of old time ; and once 

again 



36o 



riCTURES—lII. 



Within that modern prison, blank and 

white, 
There came the viewless trouble in the 

air 
"Which took her, and the sweep of 

wings unseen, 
And terrible sounds which swooped on 

her and hushed 
Her voice and seemed to occupy her 

soul 
With horror and despair ; and as I | 

passed 
The crucifix within the corridor, 
" How long?" I cried, " How long?" 



PICTURES— III. 

The sad slow dawn of winter ; frozen 

trees 
And trampled snow within a lonely 

wood ; 
One shrouded form, which to the city 

flees ; 
And one, a masquer, lying in his 

blood. 



A full sun blazing with unclouded day, 
Till the bright waters mingle with the 

sky ; 
And on the dazzling verge, uplifted 

high ; 
White sails mysterious slowly pass 

away. 



Hidden in a trackless and primx-val 

wood, 
Long-buried temples of an unknown 

race, 



And one colossal idol ; on its face 
A changeless sneer, blighting the 
solitude. 



A fair girl half undraped, who blithely 
sings ; 

Her white robe poised upon one budd- 
ing breast ; 

While at her side, invisible, uncon- 
fessed, 

Love folds her with the shelter of his 
wings. 



Black clouds embattled on a lurid sky, 
And one keen flash, like an awakened 

soul, 
Piercing the hidden depths, while 

momently 
One waits to hear enormous thunders 

roll. 



Two helpless girls upon a blazing wall, 
The keen flames leaping always high 

and higher ; 
But faster, faster than the hungry fire. 
Brave hearts which climb to save them 

ere they fall. 



A youthful martyr, looking to the skies 
From rack and stake, from torment and 

disgrace ; 
And suddenly heaven opened to his 

eyes, 
A beckoning hand, a tender heavenly 

face. 



CO.\fESSIOiV. 



361 



A home on a fair English hill ; away 
Stretch undulating plains, now gold 

now green, 
With park and lake and glade, and 

homestead grey ; 
And crowning all, the blue sea dimly 

seen. 



A lifeless, voiceless, world of age-long 

snow, 
Where winter crawls on slow through 

endless night. 
And safe within a low hut's speck of 

light, 
Strong souls alert and hopeful, by the 

glow. 



A great ship forging slowly from the ' 

shore, 
And on the broad deck weeping figures | 

bent ; j 

And on the gliding pierhead, sorrow- I 

spent, j 

Those whom tlie voyagc^^s shall see no 

more. 



CONFESSION. 

Who is there but at times has seen, 
While his past days before him stand, 
In all the chances which have been. 
The guidance of a hidden Hand, 

W'hich still has ruled his growing life. 
Through weal and woe, through joy 

and pain. 
Through fancied good, through useless 

strife, 
And empty pleasure sought in vain ; 



Which often has withheld the meed 
He longed for once, with yearnings 

blind, 
And given the truest prize indeed. 
The harvest of a blessed mind ; 

And so accepts the common lot 
Content, whate'er the Ruler would, 
Since all that has been, or has not, 
Springs from a hidden root of good ? 

•X- -X- -X- * 

Yet some there are maybe to-day, 
Whose childhood at the mother's knee 
Was taught to bow itself and pray, 
Nor ever thirsted to be free, 

Who now, "mid warring voices loud. 
Have lost the faith they held before, 
Nor through the jangling of the crowd 
Can hear the earlier message more. 

A brute Fate vexes them, the reign 
Of dumb laws, speeding onward still, 
Regardless of the waste and pain, 
Which all the labouring earth do fill. 

They look to see the rule of Right ; 
They find it not, and in its stead 
But slow survivals, born of Might, 
And all the early Godhead dead ; 

They see it not, and droop and faint 
And are unhappy, doubting God ; 
Yet every step their feet have trod 
Was trodden before them by a saint. 

-X- * -x- -x- 

Oh, doubting soul, look up, behold 
The eternal heavens above thy head. 
The solid earth beneath, its mould 
Compacted of the unnumbered dead. 

Here the eternal problems grow. 

And with each day are solved and done. 



362 



LOVE UNCHANGED. 



When some spent life, like melting 

snow, 
Breathes forth its essence to the sun. 

As death is, life is — without end ; 
Wrong with right mingles, joy with 

pain ; 
Forbid two meeting streams to blend, 
'Twere not more hopeless, nor more 

vain. 

Though Death with Life, though Wrong 

with Right, 
iVre bound within the scheme of things, 
Yet can our souls, on soaring wings. 
Gain to a loftier purer height. 

Where death is not, nor any life, 
Nor right nor wrong, nor joy nor pain ; 
But changeless Being, lacking strife, 
Doth through all change, unchanged 
remain. 

Should Wrong prevail o'er all the 

earth, 
'Twere nought if only we discern 
The one great truth, which if we learn. 
All else beside is little worth. 

That Right, is that which must prevail. 
If not here, there, if not now, then. 
Is the one Truth which shall not fail, 
For all the doubts and fears of men. 

What if a myriad ages still 
Of wrong and pain, of waste and blood. 
Confuse our thought, triumphant Good 
At length, at last, our souls can fill 

With such assurance as the Voice 
Which from the fiery mountain pealed, 
And bade the kneeling hosts rejoice 
That God was in His laws revealed. 



Nay even might our thought conceive 
The final victory of 111, 
Not so, were it folly to believe 
That Right is higher, purer still. 

Who knows the Eternal ''Ought" 

knows well 
That whoso loves and seeks the Right, 
For him God shines with changeless 

light, 
Ay, to the lowest deeps of Hell. 

And whoso knoweth God indeed. 
The fixed foundations of his creed 
Know neither changing nor decay, 
Though all creation pass away. 



LOVE UNCHANGED. 

My love, my love, if I were old, 

My body bent, my blood grown cold, 

With thin white hairs upon my brow, 

Say wouldst thou think of me as now ? 

Wouldst thou cling to me still, 

As down life's sloping hill 

We came at last through the unresting 

years ? 
Art thou prepared for tears. 
For time's sure-coming losses. 
For life's despites and crosses, 
My love, my love ? 

Ah ! brief our little, little day ; 
Ah ! years that fleet so fast away ; 
Before our summer scarce begun. 
Look, spring and blossom- tide are 

done ! 
When all things hasten past. 
How should love only last ? 
How should our souls alone unchanged 

remain ? — 
Come pleasure or come pain. 



AT THE END — THE ORPHAN GU^L OF LANNION 



563 



In days of joy and gladness, 
In years of grief and sadness, 
Love shall be love ! 



AT THE END, 

When the five gateways of the soul 

Are closing one by one, 

When our being's currents slowly roll 

And day is done, 

What shall our chiefest comfort be 

Amid this misery ? 

Not to have stores heaped up on hi<^h 

Of gold and precious things, 

Not to have flown from sky to sky 

On Fame's wide wings, — 

These things a little space do last, 

And then are overpast. 

Nor to have worked with patient brain 

In senate or in mart, 

To have gained the meed which those 

attain 
Who have played their part, — 
Effort is fair, success is sweet. 
But leave life incomplete. 

Nor to have said, as the fool says, 

" Be merry, soul, rejoice ; 

"Thou hast laid up store for many days.'' 



Oh, foolish voice ! 
Already at thy gate the feet 
Of the corpse-bearers meet. 

Nor to have heaped up precious store 

Of all the gains of time, 

Of long-dead sages' treasured lore. 

Or deathless rhyme, — 

Though Learning be a comely maid, 

Death maketh her afraid. 

Nor to have drained the cup of youth. 
To the sweet maddening lees ; 
Nor, rapt by dreams of Hidden Truth, 
To have spurned all these ; — 
Pleasure, Denial, touch not him 
Whose body and mind are dim. 

Not one of all these things shall I 

For comfort use, or strength. 

When the sure hour, when I must die, 

Takes me at length ; 

One thought alone shall bring redress 

For that great heaviness :— 

That I have held each struggling so- ' " 

As of one kin and blood, 

That one sure link doth all control 

To one close brotherhood ; 

For who the race of men doth love. 

Loves also Him above. 



THREE BRETON POEMS. 



I. 

THE ORPHAN GIRL OF 
LANNION. 

In seventeen hundred and eighty-three. 
To Lannion came dole and misery. 

Mignon an orphan, as good as fair. 
Served in the little hostelry there. 



One darkling night, when the hour was 

late. 
Two travellers rang at the outer gate. 

"Quick, hostess! supper, red wine, 

and food ; 
We have money to pay, so that all be 

good." 



3^4 



THE ORPHAN GIRL OF LANNION. 



When they had drunken enough, and 

more, 
" Here is white money to pay the score. 

' * And now shall your little serving- 
maid come, 

With her lantern lighted, to guide us 
home." 

"Gentles, in all our wide Brittany 
There is no man would harm her, so let 
it be." 

Forth went the maid, full of innocent 

pride, 
Fearless and free, with her light by her 

side. 
* * * * 

When they were far on their lonely 

way. 
They began to whisper, and mutter, 

and say, 

"Liitle maid, your face is as fair and 
bright 
the foam on the wa^e in the morn- 
ing light." 

" Gentles, I pray you, flatter me not : 
It- is as God made it— no other, God 
wot ; 

"And were it fairer, I tell you true- 
Ay, a hundred times fairer — 'twere 
nought to you." 

"To judge, little maid, by your sober 

speech. 
You know all the good priests at the 

school can teach ; 

" To judge from your accents, discreet 

and mild. 
You were bred in the convent cloister, 

my child." 



"No teacher had I, neither priest nor 

nun ; 
There was no one to teach me on earth, 

not one. 

" But while by my father's poor hearth 

I Avrought, 
God filled me with many a holy 

thought." 

" Set down your lantern and put out 

the light. 
Here is gold : none can help you, "tis 

dead of night." 

' ' Good sirs ! for my brother the young 

priest's sake ; 
If he heard such sayings his heart would 

break." 

* * * * 

" Oh, plunge me down fathoms deep in 

the sea, 
Of your mercy, rather than this thing 

be! 

"Rather than this — 'twere a lighter 

doom — 
Oh bury me quick in a living tomb ! " 

* * * * 

The motherly hostess, sore afraid, 
Waited in vain for her little maid. 

She watched by the chill hearth's flicker- 
ing light 

Till the bell tolled twice through the 
black dead night. 

Then cried, "Up, serving-men, sleep 

no more I 
Help ! — little maid Mignon lies drowned 

in gore." 
* -X- * * 



THE FOSTER BROTHER. 



365 



By the cross she lay dead, in the dead 

cold night, 
But beside her her lantern was still 
aliirht ! 



II. 



THE FOSTER BROTHER. 

Of all the noble damsels, in all our 

Brittany, 
Gwennola was the sweetest far, a maiden 

fair to see. 



She woke her, ere the darkling dawns, 
while yet 'twas dead of night, 

To sweep the floors and cleanse the 
house, and set the fires alight ; 

To fetch the water from the brook, 

again and yet again, 
With heavy toil and panting breath, 

and young form bent in twain. 
* * * * 

One darkling winter morning, before 

the dawning light, 
With ringing hoofs, across the bnook 

there rode a noble knight : 



Scarce eighteen summers shed their 

gold upon her shapely head, 
Yet all who loved the fair gii-1 best were "Good morrow, gracious maiden, and 



numbered with the dead — 

Her father and her mother, and eke 

her sisters dear. 
Ah ! Mary, pity 'twas to see her shed 

the bitter tear 

At her casement in the castle, where a 

step-dame now bare sway, 
Ilcr dim eyes fixed upon the sea, which 

glimmered far away. 
* * * * 

For three long years she watched in 

vain, in dole and misery, 
To see her foster brother's sail rise up 

from under sea ; 

For three long years she watched in 
vain, hoping each day would send 

The only heart which beat to hers, her 
lover and her friend. 

" Go, get you gone and tend the kine," 
the cruel step-dame said ; 

'' Leave brooding over long-past years : 
go, earn your daily bread." 



art thou free to wed ? " 
And she, so )'oung she was and meek, 
" I know not, sir," she said. 

" I prithee tell me, maiden, if thou art 

fancy-free ? " 
"To none, sir, have I plighted yet my 

maiden troth," said she. 

"Then take, fair maid, this ring of 
gold, and to your stsp-dame say. 

That to-day your troth is plighted to a 
knight from far away ; 

"That at Nantes a battle fierce was 
fought, wherein his squire was 
slain, 

And he himself lies stricken sore upon 
his bed of pain ; 

" But when three weeks arc overpast, 

whatever fate betide. 
Me will come himself full gaily, and 

claim thee for his bride." 



366 



THE FOSTER BROTHER. 



Affrighted ran she ti.o her home, when, 

lo, a wondrous thing ! 
For on her slendeir finger blazed her 

foster brothepr's ring. 

/ 



The weeks crept cinward slowly, crept 
slowly — onfi, two, three ; 

But never came the young knight, no 
never more came he. 

"Come, it is time that you were werl, 
for I have sought for you 

A bridegroom fitted to your rank, an 
honest man and true." 

"Nay, nay, I prithee, step-dame, there 
is none that I can wed, 

Only my foster brother dear I love, 
alive or dead. 

" With this ring his troth he plighted, 
and whatever fate betide, 

He will come himself full gaily, and 
claim me for his bride." 



".Peace, with thy golden wedding-ring ! 

peace, fool, or I will teach 
With blows thy senseless chattering 

tongue to hold discreeter speech ; 

' ' To-morrow thou shalt be the bride, 
whether thou wilt or not, 

Of Giles the neat-herd, honest man : 
ay, this shall be thy lot." 



"Of Giles the neat-herd, saidst thou? 

oh, I shall die of pain ! 
Oh mother, dear dead mother, thai thou 

wert in life again ! " 



" Go, cry and wail without the house ; 

go, feed on misery : 
Go, take thy fill of moans and tears, for 

wedded thou shalt be." 



Just then the ancient sexton, with the 
bell that tolls the dead, 

Went up and down the country side, 
and these the words he said : — 

"Pray for the soul of one who was a 
brave and loyal knight, 

Who bare at Nantes a grievous hurt, 
what time they fought the fight : 

"To-morrow eve, at set of sun, amid 

the gathering gloom. 
From the white church they bear him 

forth, to rest within the tomb." 



"Thou art early from the wedding 
feast ! " " Good truth, I could 
not stay ; 

I dared not see the piteous sight, and 
therefore turned away ; 

" I could not bear the pity and the 

horror in her eyne. 
As she stood so fair, in blank despair, 

^^■ithin the sacred shrine. 

"Around the hapless maiden, all were 

weeping bitterly. 
And the good old rector at the church, 

a heavy heart had he ; 

"Not a dry eye was around her, save 
the step-dame stern alone. 

Who looked on with an evil smile, as 
from a heart of stone ; 



THE FOSTER BROTHER. 



367 



" And when the ringers rang a jDcal, as 

now they came again, 
And the women whispered comfort, yet 

her heart seemed rent in twain. 

"High in the place of honour at the 
marriage feast she sate, 

Yet no drop of water drank she, and 
no crumb of bread she ate ; 

"And when at last, the feast being 
done, they would light the bride 
to bed, 

The ring from off her hand she flung, 
the wreath from off her head, 

"And with wild eyes that spoke de- 
spair, and locks that streamed 
behind, 

Into the darkling night she fled, as 
swiftly as the wind." 



The lights within the castle were out, 

and all asleep ; 
Only, with fever in her brain, the maid 

would watch and weep. 

The chamber door swung open. *' Who 
goes there ? " " Do not fear, 

Gwen ; 'tis I, your foster brother. " 
' ' Oh ! at last, my love, my 
dear ! " 

lie raised her to the saddle, and his 
strong arm clasped her round. 

As, through the night, his charger white 
flew on without a sound. 

"How fast we go, my brother!" 
" 'Tis a hundred leagues and 
more." 

" How happy am I, happier than in all 
my life before ! 



' ' And have we far to go, brother ? I 
would that we were come." 

" Have patience, sister ; hold me fast ; 
'tis a long way to our home." 

The white owl shrieked around them, 
the wild things shrank in fear 

As through the night a cloud of light 
that ghostly steed drew near. 

" How swift your charger is, brother! 

and your armour oh, how bright ! 
Ah, no more you are a boy, brother, 

but in troth a noble knight ! 

"How beautiful you are, brother ! but 
I would that we were come." 

" Have patience, sister ; hold me fast ; 
we are not far from home." 



" Your breath is icy-cold, brother, your 
locks are dank and wet ; 

Your heart, your hands are icy-cold ; 
oh ! is it further yet ? " 

" Have patience, sister ; hold me fast ; 

for we are nearly there ; 
Hist ! hear you not our marriage bells 

ring through the midnight air ? " 

Even with the word, that ghostly steed 
neighed suddenly and shrill, 

Then trembled once through every limb, 
and like a stone stood still. 



And lo, within a land they were, a land 
of mirth and pleasure, 

Where youths and maidens hand in 
hand danced to a joyous mea- 
sure : 



368 



AZENOR. 



A verdant orchard closed them round 


When the warder spied them near, 


with golden fruit bedight, 


To the King he went, and cried, 


And above them, from the heaven- 


"Twelve bold knights come pricking 


kissed hills, came shafts of golden 


here : 


light ; 


Shall I open to them wide ? " 


Hard by, a cool spring bubbled clear, 


"Opened let the great gates be ; 


a fountain without stain. 


See the knights are welcomed all ; 


Whereof the dead lips tasting, grew 


Spread the board and deck the hall, 


warm with life again. 


We will feast them royally." 


There was Gwennola's mother mild, 


" By our Prince's high command. 


and eke her sisters dear : 


Who one day shall be our King, 


Oh, land of joy and bliss and love !— 


We come to ask a precious thing — 


oh, land without a tear ! 


Azenor your daughter's hand." 


VI. 


" Gladly will we grant your prayer : 


Rut when the next sun on the earth, 
brake from the gathered gloom. 


Brave the youth, as we have heard. 
Tall is she, niilkwhite and fair. 


From the white church, the young 


Gentle as a singing bird." 


maids bore, the virgin to her 




tomb. 


Fourteen days high feast they made. 




Fourteen days of dance and song ; 




Till the dawn the harpers played ; 


III. 


Mirth and joyance all day long. 


AZENOR, 


' ' Now, my fair spouse, it is meet 


" Seamen, seamen, tell me true, 
is there any of your crew 
Who in Armor town has seen 


That we turn us toward our home." 
" As you will, my love, my sweet ; 
Where you are, there I would come." 


Azenor the kneeling queen ? " 


II. 


" We have seen her oft indeed, 


When his step-dame saw the bride. 


Kneeling in the self-same place ; 


Well-nigh choked with spleen was she : 


Brave her heart, though pale her face. 


" This pale-faced girl, this lump of 


White her soul, though dark her weed." 


pride — 


I. 


And shall she be preferred to me ? 


Of a long-past summer's day 


" New things please men best, 'tis true, 


Envoys came from far away, 


And the old are cast aside. 


Mailed in silver, clothed with gold, 


Natheless, what is old and tried 


High on snorting chargers bold. 


Serves far better than the new." 



AZENOR, 



369 



Scarce eight months had passed away 
When she to the Prince would come, 
And with subtlety would say, 
"Would you lose both wife and 
home ? 

" Have a care, lest what I tell 
Should befall you ; it were best 
To have a care and guard you well, 
'Ware the cuckoo in your nest." 

"Madam, if the truth you tell, 
Meet reward her crime shall earn, 
First the round tower's straitest cell, 
Then in nine days she shall burn." 

III. 

When the old King was aware, 
Bitter tears the greybeard shed. 
Tore in grief his white, white hair, 
Crying, "Would God that I were dead." 

And to all the seamen said, 

" Good seamen, pray you tell me true, 

Is there, then, any one of you 

Can tell me if my child be dead ? " 

" My liege, as yet alive is she, 
Though burned to-morrow shall she be : 
But from her prison tower, O King ! 
Morning and eve we hear her sing. 

" Morning and eve, from her fair throat 
Issues the same sweet plaintive note, 
' They are deceived ; I kiss Thy rod : 
Have pity on them, O my God ! '" 



Even as a lamb who gives its life 
All meekly to the cruel knife, 
White-robed she went, her soft feet 

bare, 
Self-shrouded in her golden hair. 



And as she to her dreadful fate 

Fared on, poor innocent, meek and 

mild, 
" Grave crime it were," cried small and 

great, 
" To slay the mother and the child." 

All wept sore, both small and great ; 
Only the step-dame smiling sate : 
" Sure 'twere no evil deed, but good, 
To kill the viper with her brood." 

"Quick, good firemen, fan the fire 
Till it leap forth fierce and red ; 
Fan it fierce as my desire : 
She shall burn till she is dead." 

Vain their efforts, all in vain, 
Though they fanned and fanned again ; 
The more they blew, the embers gray 
Faded and sank and died away. 

When the judge the portent saw, 
Dazed and sick with fear was he : 
" She is a witch, she flouts the law ; 
Come, let us drown her in the sea." 



What saw you on the sea? A boat 
Neither by sail nor oarsman sped ; 
And at the helm, to watch it float, 
An angel white with wings outspread ; 

A little boat, far out to sea, 
And with her child a fair ladye, 
Whom at her breast she sheltered well, 
Like a white dove upon a shell. 

She kissed, and clasped, and kissed 

again 
His little back, his little feet, 
Crooning a soft and tender strain, 
" Da-da, my dear ; da-da, my sweet. 
2 B 



370 



AZENOR. 



" Ah, could your father see you, sweet, 
A proud man should he be to-day ; 
But we on earth may never meet, 
But he is lost and far away." 

VI. 

In Armor town is such affright 
As never castle knew before. 
For at the midmost hour of night 
The wicked step-dame is no more. 

" I see hell open at my side : 

Oh, save me, in God's name, my 

son ! 
Your spouse was chaste ; 'twas I who 

lied ; 
Oh, save me, for I am undone ! " 

Scarce had she checked her lying tongue, 
A viper from her lips would glide. 
With threatening fangs, which hissed 

and stung. 
And pierced her marrow till she died. 

Eftsoons, to foreign realms the knight 
Went forth, by land and over sea ; 
Seeking in vain his lost delight. 
O'er all the round, round world went 
he. 

He sought her East, he sought her 

West, 
Next to the hot South sped he forth, 
Then, after many a fruitless quest, 
He sought her in the gusty North. 

There by some nameless island vast. 
His anchor o'er the side he cast ; 



When by a brooklet's fairy spray, 
He spies a little lad at play. 

Fair are his locks, and blue his eyes. 
As his lost love's or as the sea ; 
The good knight looking on them, sighs, 
" Fair child, who may thy father be?" 

' ' Sir, I have none save Him in heaven : 
Long years ago he went away, 
Ere I was born, and I am seven ; 
My mother mourns him night and day." 

"Who is thy mother, child, and 

where?" 
' ' She cleanses linen white and fair, 
j In yon clear stream." " Come, child, 

and we 
I Together will thy mother see." 

He took the youngling by the hand. 
And, as they passed the yellow strand, 
The child's swift blood in pulse and 

arm 
Leapt to his father's and grew warm, 

" Rise up and look, oh mother dear ; 
It is my father who is here : 
My father who was lost is come — 
Oh, bless God for it ! — to his home." 

They knelt and blessed His holy name, 
Who is so good, and just, and mild, 
Who joins the sire and wife and child : 
And so to Brittany they came. 

And may the blessed Trinity, 
Protect all toilers on the sea ! 



GYC I A. 



DRAMATIS PERSON.'E. 



PEOPLE OF BOSPHORUS. 

The King of Bosimiorus. 

AsANDEK, Prhice of Bosphoriis. 

Lysimachus, a statesman. 

Megacles, a chamberlain front the Imperial Court of Constantinople 

Three Cotirticrs, accompanying Asander. 

Soldiers, etc. 

PEOPLE OF CHERSON. 

Lamachus, Archon of the Republic ofCherson, 

Zetho, his successor. 

Theodorus, a young noble (brother to Irene)., in love ivith Gycia. 

Bardanes,_/?;-5/ Senator. 

Ambassador to Bosphorus. 

The Senators ofChersou. 

Two Labourers. 

Gycia, daughter of Lamachits. 

Irene, a lady — her friend, in love with Asandcr. 

Melissa, an elderly lady in zuaiting on Gycia. 

Child, dajighter of the Gaoler. 

Citizens, etc. 



ACli I. 

SCENE I. — Bosphorus, 
King's Palace. 



The 



The King, in anxious thougiit. To 
him Lysimachus, afterwards Asan- 

DER. 

Enlcr Lysimachus. 

Lys. What ails the King, that thus 
his brow is bent 
By such a load of care ? 

King. Lysimachus, 

The load of empire lies a weary weight, 



On age-worn brains; tlio' skies and 

seas may smile, 
And steadfast favouring Fortune sit 

serene. 
Guiding the helm of State, but well 

thou knowest — 
None better in my realm— through 

what wild waves. 
Quicksands, and rock-fanged straits, 

our Bosphorus, 
Laden with all our love, reels madly on 
To shipwreck and to ruin. From the 

North, 
Storm-cloud on storm-cloud issuing 

volleys forth 



372 



GVCIA. 



Fresh thunderbolts of war. The Em- 
peror 

Dallies within his closed seraglios, 

Letting his eunuchs waste the might 
of Rome, 

While the fierce Scythian, in a surge of 
blood. 

Bursts on our bare-swept plains. Upon 
the South, 

Our rival Cherson, with a jealous eye, 

Waits on our adverse chances, taking 

joy 

Of her republican guile in every check 
And buffet envious Fortune deals our 

State, 
Which doth obey a King. Of all our 

foes 
I hate and dread these chiefly, for I fear 
Lest, when my crown falls from my 

palsied brow. 
My son Asander's youth may prove too 

weak 
To curb these crafty burghers. Speak, 

I pray thee. 
Most trusty servant. Can thy loyal 

brain 
Devise some scheme whereby our dear- 
loved realm 
]\Iay break the mesh of Fate ? 

Lys. Indeed, my liege. 

Too well I know our need, and long 

have tossed 
Through sleepless nights, if haply I 

might find 
Some remedy, but that which I have 

found 
Shows worse than the disease. 

King. Nay, speak ; what is it ? 

I know how wise thy thought. 

Lys. My liege, it chances 

The Archon Lamachus is old and spent. 
He has an only child, a daughter, 
Gycia. 



The treasure of his age, who now 

blooms forth 
In early maidenhood. The girl is 

fair 
As is a morn in springtide ; and her 

father 
A king in all but name, such reverence 
His citizens accord him. Were it not 

well 
The Prince Asander should contract 

himself 
In marriage to this girl, and take the 

strength 
Of Cherson for her dowry, and the 

power 
Of their strong fleets and practised arms 

to thrust 
The invading savage backward? 

King. Nay, my lord ; 

No more of this, I pray. There is no 

tribe 
Of all the blighting locust-swarms of 

war, 
Which sweep our wasted fields, I would 

not rather 
Take to my heart and cherish than 

these vipers. 
Dost thou forget, my lord, how of old 

time, 
In the bra.ve days of good Sauromatus, 
These venomous townsmen, shame- 
lessly allied 
With the barbarian hosts, brought us 

to ruin ; 
Or, with the failing force of Cscsar 

leagued, 
By subtle devilish enginery of war, 
Robbed Bosphorus of its own, when, 

but for them, 
Byzantium were our prey, and all its 

might. 
And we Rome's masters ? Nay ; I 
1 swear to thee, 



GYCIA. 



37: 



I would rather see the Prince dead at Not more than is my mind ; I cannot 

my feet, ! reason. 

I would rather see our loved State sunk But hark ! I hear the ring of coursers' 



and lost, 



feet 



Than know my boy, the sole heir of my i Bespeak Asander coming. What an 



crown, 
The sole hope of my people, taken and 

noosed 
By this proud upstart girl. Speak not 

of it; 
Ruin were better far. 

Lys. My liege, I bear 

No greater favour to these insolent 

townsmen 
Than thou thyself. I, \\\\o have fought 

with them 
From my first youth — who saw my 

father slain, 
Not in fair fight, pierced through by 

honest steel, 
But unawares, struck by some villanous 

engine. 
Which, armed with inextinguishable 

fire. 
Flew hissing from the walls and slew^ at 

once 
Coward and brave alike ; I, whose 

young brother, 
The stripling who to me was as a son. 
Taken in some sally, languished till he 

died. 
Chained in their dungeons' depths ; — 

must I not hate them 
With hate as deep as hell ? And yet I 

know 
There is no other way than that 

Asander 
Should wed this woman. This alone 

can staunch 
The bleeding wounds of the State. 

King. Lysimachus, 

I am old ; my will is weak, my body 

bent, 



Of youth and morning breathes round 

him, and brings 
A light of hope again ! 

Enter AsAKDER/rom the chase, 

Asan. My dearest sire and King, 

art thou thus grave 
Of choice, or does our good Lysimachus, 
Bringing unwonted loads of carking 

care, 
O'ercloud thy brow ? 1 prithee, father, 

fi-et not ; 
There is no cloud of care I yet have 

known — 
And I am now a man, and have my 

cares — 
Which the fresh breath of morn, the 

hungry chase, 
The echoing horn, the jocund choir of 

tongues, 
Or joy of some bold enterprise of 

war, 
When the swift squadrons smite the 

echoing plains, 
Scattering the stubborn spearmen, may 

not break. 
As does the sun the mists. Nay, look 

not grave ; 
My youth is strong enough for any 

burden 
Fortune can cast on me. 

King. Couldst thou, Asander, 

Consent to serve the State, if it should 

bid thee 
Wed without love ? 

Asan. What, father, is that all ? 

I do not know this tertian fever, love, 



!74 



GYCIA. 



ACT I. 



Of which too oft my comrades groan 


Ki7ig: It is no jest, my son. 


and sigh, 


Our good Lysimachus will tell thee all 


This green-sick blight, which turns a 


Our need and whence it comes. 


kisty soldier 


Lys. My gracious Prince, 


To a hysterical girl. Wed without 


Thus stands the case, no otherwise. 


love? 


Our foes 


One day I needs must wed, though 


Press closer year by year, our wide- 


love I shall not. 


spread plains 


And if it were indeed to serve the 


Are ravaged, and our bare, unpeopled 


State, 


fields 


Nay, if 'twould smooth one wrinkle 


Breed scantier levies ; while the trea- 


from thy brow, 


sury 


Why, it might be to-morrow. Tell me, 


Stands empty, and we have not means 


father. 


to buy 


Who is this paragon that thou designest 


The force that might resist them. 


Shall call me husband? Some bar- 


Nought but ruin. 


barian damsel 


Speedy, inevitable, can await 


Reared on mare's milk, and nurtured 


Our failing Bosphorus' unaided strength. 


in a tent 


Unless some potent rich ally should 


In Scythia? Well, 'twere better than 


join 


to mate 


Our weakness to her might. None 


With some great lady from the Imperial 


other is there 


Court, 


To which to look but Cherson ; and I 


Part tigress and all wanton. I care 


know. 


not ; 


From trusty friends among them, that 


Or if the scheme miscarry, I care 


even now, 


not. 


Perchance this very day, an embassy 


Tell me, good father. 


Comes to us with design that we should 


/■Ctjig. Wouldst thou wed, Asander, 


sink 


If 'twere to save the State, a Greek 


Our old traditional hnte in the new 


from Cherson ? 


bonds 


Asari. From Cherson? Nay, my 


Which Hymen binds together. For 


liege ; that were too much. 


the girl 


A girl from out that cockatrice's den — 


Gycia, the daughter of old Lamachus, 


Take such a one to wife? I would 


Their foremost man, there comes but 


liefer take 


one report — 


A viper to my breast ! Nay, nay, you 


That she is fair as good. 


jest. 


Asan. My lord, I pray you, 


My father, for you hate this low-born 


Waste not good breath. If I must sell 


crew. 


myself, 


Grown gross by huckstering ways and 


It matters not if she be fair or foul, 


sordid craft — 


Angel or doul')ly damned ; hating the 


Ay, more than I. 


race, 



GYCIA. 



375 



Men, maidens, young and old, I would 

blight my life 
To save my country. 

King. Thanks, my dearest son. 

There spake a patriot indeed. 

Servant. My liege, 

An embassy from Cherson for the King. 

Enter Ambassador, ivith retinue. 

Anibas. Sirs, I bring you a message 
from Lamachus, the Archon of Cher- 
son. 

Lys. Sirs, forsooth ! Know ye not 
the dignity of princes, or does your 
republican rudeness bar you from all 
courtesy ? I do not count myself equal 
to the King, nor, therefore should you. 

King. Nay, good Lysimachus, let 
him proceed. 

Ainbas. If I am blunt of speech, I 
beg your forgiveness. I bring to you 
a letter from the citizen Lamachus, 
which I shall read, if it be your 
pleasure. 

King. Read on. 

Amhas. " To the King of Bosphorus, 
Lamachus sends greeting. We are 
both old. Let us forget the former 
enmities of our States, and make an 
alliance which shall protect us against 
the storm of barbarian invasion which 
Ccesar is too weak to ward off. Thou 
hast a son, and I a daughter. Thy son 
is, from all report, a brave youth and 
worthy. My daughter is the paragon 
of her sex. I have wealth and posses- 
sions and respect as great as if I were a 
sceptred King. The youth and the 
maid are of fitting age. Let us join 
their hands together, and with them 
those of our States, and grow strong 
enough to defy the barbarians, and 
Rome also." 



Asan. My liege, I am willing for 
this marriage. Let it be. 

King. My son, we have not yet 
heard all. Read on, sir. 

Amhas. "There is one condition 
which not my will, but the jealousy of 
our people enforces, viz. that the Prince 
Asander, if he weds my daughter, shall 
thenceforth forswear his countiy, nor 
seek to return to it on pain of death. 
I pray thee, pardon the rudeness of my 
countrymen ; but they are Greeks, and 
judge their freedom more than their 
lives." 

Asan. Lisolent hounds ! 
This is too much. I will have none of 

them. 
Take back that message. 

King. Thou art right, my son. 

I could not bear to lose thee, not to 

win 
A thousand Chersons. Let us fight 

alone, 
And see what fortune sends us. 

Lys. Good my liege, 

Be not too hasty. [To Ambassador) 

Sir, the King has heard 
The message which you bring, and 

presently 
Will send a fitting answer. \^Exit Am- 
bassador. 

Nay, my liege, 
I beg your patience. That these fellows 

make 
Their friendship difficult is true ; but 

think 
How great the value of it, and re- 
member 
How easy 'tis to promise and break 

faith 
With insolent dogs like these. This 

Lamachus 
Ts older than your grace, and feebler far. 



376 



GVCJA. 



He will not live for ever, and, he gone, 
Will not the Prince Asander be as 

great, 
The husband of his daughter and his 

heir, 
As he is now, and sway the power of 

Cherson 
For our own ends, and cast to all the 

winds 
This foul enforced compact, and o'er- 

turn 
This commonwealth of curs? I will 

stake my life 
That three years shall not pass ere he 

is King 
Of Cherson in possession, and at once 
Of Bosphorus next heir. 
"The tongue hath sworn, the mind 

remains unsworn," 
So says their poet. 

Asair. I'll have none of it. 

I am not all Greek, but part Cimmerian, 
And scorn to break my word." 
Let us face ruin, father, not deceit. 
King. My noble son, I love thee. 
Lys. Good, my liege, 

And thou, my Lord Asander, ponder 

it. 
Consider our poor country's gaping 

wounds, 
And what a remedy lies to our hands. 
I will die willingly if I devise not 
A scheme to bend these upstarts to 

your will. {Exeunt omncs. 



SCENE IL— Outside the Palace. 

Megacles and Courtiers. 

Meg. Well, my lords, and so it is 
all settled. We must all be on board 
in half an hour. His Altitude the 
Prince sails at once for Cherson, and 



with a view to his immediate marriage. 
Was ever such a rash step heard of? 
Not twenty-four hours to get ready the 
marriage equipment of a Prince of Bos- 
phorus. Well, well, I dare say they 
would be glad enough to take him with 
no rag to his back. I dare say these 
rascally republicans would know no 
better if he were to be married in his 
everyday suit. 

\st Couj-f. V faith, I should never 
have dreamt it. Asander, who is the 
boldest huntsman and the bravest 
soldier, and the best of good fellows, 
to go and tie himself to the apron - 
string of a Greek girl, a tradesman's 
daughter from Cherson, of all places on 
earth ! Pah ! it makes me sick ! 

2nd Court. But I hear she is beauti- 
ful as Artemis, and Well, we are 

all young or have been, and beauty is 
a strong loadstone to such metal as the 
Prince's. 

3?'^/ Co2irt. Nay, he has never set 
eyes on her ; and, for that matter, the 
Lady Irene was handsome enough, in 
all conscience, and a jovial young 
gentlewoman to boot. Ye gods ! do 
you mind how she sighed for him and 
pursued him ? It was a sight to please 
the goddess Aphrodite herself But 
then, our good Asander, who had only 
to lift up his little finger, was so cold 
and positively forbidding, that I once 
came upon the poor lady crying her 
eyes out in a passion of mortified 
feeling. 

\st Court. Ay, she was from this 
outlandish Cherson, was not she? 
Aphrodite was a Greek woman also, 
remember. 

2nd Court. So she was. I had 
quite forgotten where the lady came 



SCENE II. 



GVC/A. 



377 



from. Well, if she is there now, and 
cannot get her Prince, and would like 
a gay, tolerably well-favoured young 
fellow for a lover, I suppose she need 
go no further than the present com- 
pany. 

Afe^. My lords, I pray you leave 
these frivolities, and let us come to 
serious matters. Think, I beg you, in 
what a painful position I am placed. 
I am to go, without proper notice, as 
Master of the Ceremonies of the Court 
of Bosphorus, to conduct an important 
Court-ceremonial with a pack of scurvy 
knaves, who, I will be bound, hardly 
know the difference between an Illus- 
trious and a Respectable, or a Respect- 
aljle and an Honourable. I must do 
my best to arrange all decently and in 
order, and as near as may be to the 
Imperial model, and all these matters 
I have to devise on shipboard, tossed 
about on that villanous Euxine, with a 
smell of pitch everywhere, and sea- 
sickness in my stomach. And when I 
get to Cherson, if ever I do get there 
alive, I have not the faintest idea whom 
I am to consult with— whether there 
is a Count of the Palace or anybody, in 
fact. I dare say there is nobody ; I am 
sure there is nobody. A marriage of 
the heir apparent is a very serious 
affair, let me tell you. What a comfort 
it is that I have got the last edition of 
that precious work of the divine Theo- 
dosius on Dignities ! If it were not for 
that, I should go mad. 

li-/ Court. My good Megacles, I 
warn you the Prince cares as little for 
etiquette as he does for love-making. 

Aleg. Very likely, and that makes 
my position so difficult. Just reflect 
for a moment. When we go ashore at 



Cherson, I suppose we shall be re- 
ceived by the authorities ? 

2nd Court. Surely, good Megacles. 

Meg. Then, how many steps should 
Prince Asander take to meet his father- 
in-law Lamachus — eh } And how many 
steps should Lamachus take? You 
never gave the matter a thought ? Of 
course not. And these are questions 
to be settled on the spot, and scores 
like them. 

yd Co I 
matter at all, or very little. 

Meg. Matter very little, indeed ! 
very little, forsooth ! Why, in the 
name of all the saints, do not alliances 
fall through for less ? Are not bloody 
wars fought for less? Do I not re- 
member the sad plight of the Grand 
Chamberlain, when the Illustrious Leo, 
the Pro-Consul of Macedonia, had a 
meeting at Court with the Respectable 
the Vice-Prefect of Pannonia ? Now, 
the Pro-Consul should have taken four 
steps forward, as being the most noble, 
the Vice-Prefect five. But, the Vice- 
Prefect being a tall man, and the Pro- 
Consul a short one, the Grand Cham- 
berlain did not sufficiently measure 
their distances ; and so when they had 
taken but four steps each, there were 
the two Dignitaries bolt upright, face 
to face, glaring at each other, and no 
room to take the fraction of a foot pace 
more. 

1st Court. Faith, a very laughable 
situation, good Megacles. Was it hard 
to settle ! 

Meg. I should think it was hard to 
settle. No one could interfere ; the 
Book of Ceremonies was sent for, and 
was silent. There was nothing for it 
but that the Emperor, after half an 



378 



GVCJA. 



ACT I., SCENE II, 



hour, broke up the Cojurt in confusion, 

ined where they 

dark, and then 

One knows how. 

For fifteen years 



and those two rema 
were till it was quite 
they got away, no 
But what came of it ? 



there 



and bloodshed bet^ 
t for the invi 



the provinces, and bu 
of the Goths, there wdSuld be to this day, 
Matter little, indeed ! Why, you foolish 
youngster, ceremony^ is everything in 
life. To understand Precedence aright 
is to know the secre'ts of nature. The 
order of Precedence is the order of 
Creation. It is, ini fact, a very cos- 
mogony. Oh, a noble science! a noble 
science ! 

ij'/ Court. Right, good Megacles, 
to magnify your office. Bravery is 
nothing; goodness is nothing; beauty 
is a foolish dream. Give us Ceremony, 
Ceremony, more C'eremony ; it is the 
salt of life. 

Meg. A very intelligent youth. But 
here comes the Kii'ig. 

Enter the King, Asander, and 
Lysimachus. 

Asan. My liege, I do your will. 
Though with a heavy heart. Farewell, 

my father. 
If I must bid farewell to this dear City, 
Which nourished me from childhood, 

'tis to save it, 
Not otherwise, and thou my sire and 

King. 
From thee I do not part, and often- 
times, 
If the saints will, I yet shall welcome 

thee. 
When all our foes are routed and our 

troubles 
Fled like some passing storm-cloud, to 

my hearth. 



And set thy heir upon thy knees, a 

Prince 
Of Bosphorus and Cherson. 

King. Good, my son, 

I pray God keep you, for I dimly 

fear. 
So dark a presage doth obscure my 

mind, 
That we shall meet no more. 

Lys. My honoured liege. 

These are the figments of a mind 

which grief 
Hath part disordered. Thou shalt see 

thy son. 
Trust me for it ; I swear it. One thing 

more 
Remains. I know what 'tis to be a 

youth 
As yet untouched by love ; I know 

what charm 
Lies in the magic of a woman's eyes 
For a young virgin heart. I pray you, 

sir. 
Swear to me by the saints, that, come 

what may, 
For no allurement which thy new life 

brings thee, 
The love of wife or child, wilt thou 

forget 
Our Bosphorus, but still wilt hold her 

weal 
Above all other objects of thy love 
In good or adverse fortune. 

Asan. Nay, my lord. 

There is no need for oaths ; yet will I 

swear it, 
Here on this soldier's cross. 
\Mahes a cross with the hilt of his sword. 
Farewell, my father, 
I mar my manhood, staying. 

King. Farewell, son. 

Let my old eyes fix on thee till thou 

goest 



ACT II., SCENE I. 



GVC/A. 



379 



Beneath the farthest verge. Good 


Ire. Prithee, dear, 


Megacles, 


Speak not of this. 


And you brave gentlemen, be faithful 


Gj'a'a. Ah ! then I know 'tis true. 


all 


Confess what manner of thing love is. 


To me andSto your Prince. 


Ire. Nay, nay, I cannot tell thee 


Zj's. My Lord Asander,. 


[weeping], Gycia ; 


Remember ! 


Thou knowest not what thou askest. 




What is love ? 




Seek not to know it. 'Tis to be no 


ACT 11. 


more 




Thy own, but all another's ; 'tis to 


SCENE I.— Lamachus' Talace, 


dwell 


Cherson. 


By day and night on one fixed madding 


Gycia a/ici^ Irene. 


thought, 
Till the form wastes, and with the form 


Gj'da. Sweetest Irene, 


the heart 


What joy it is to see thee once again 


Is warped from right to wrong, and can 


After so long an absence ! We had 


forget 


grown 


All that it loved before, faith, duty. 


Together on one stalk so long, since 


country, 


first 


Friendship, affection— everything but 


Our girlish lives began to burst to 


love. 


flower, 


Seek not to know it, dear ; or, knowing 


That it was hard to part us. But me- 


it, 


thinks 


Be happier than I. 


That something of the rose from off 


Gycia. My poor Irene ! 


thy cheek 


Then, 'tis indeed a misery to love. 


Has faded, and its rounded outline fair 


I do repent that I have tortured thee 


Seems grown a little thinner. 


By such unthinking jests. Forgive me, 


/;v. Gycia, 


dear. 


The flower, once severed from the 


I will speak no more of it ; with me 


stalk, no more 


thy secret 


Grows as before. 


Is safe as with a sister. Shouldst thou 


Gycia. Thou strange girl, to put on 


wish 


Such grave airs ! Ah ! I fear at Bos- 


To unburden to me thy unhappy heart, 


phorus 


If haply I might bring thy love to thee. 


Some gay knight has bewitched thee ; 


Thou shalt his name divulge and 


thou has fallen 


quality, 


In love, as girls say — though what it 


And I will do my best. 


may be 


Ire. Never, dear Gycia. 


To fall in love, I know not, thank the 


Forget my weakness ; 'twas a passing 


gods, 


folly. 


Having much else to think of 


I love a man who loves me not again, 



38o 



GYCIA. 



And that is very hell. I would die 


Gycia. Oh, father, is it wise ? 


sooner 


Do fire and water mingle? Does the 


Than breathe his name to thee. Fare- 


hawk 


well, dear lady ! 


Mate with the dove ; the tiger with the 


Thou canst not aid me. \Exit Irene. 


lamb ; 


Gycia. Hapless girl ! I'raise 


The tyrant with the peaceful common- 


Heaven 


wealth ; 


That I am fancy-free ! 


Fair commerce with the unfruitful 




works of war ? 


Enter Lamachus. 


What union can there be 'twixt our fair 


Lama. My dearest daughter, why 


city 


this solemn asjDCct ? 


And this half-barbarous race ? 'Twere 


I have glad news for thee. Thou 


against nature 


knowest of old 


To bid these opposite elements com- 


The weary jealousies, the bloody 


bine — 


feuds, 


The Greek with the Cimmerian. Fa- 


Which 'twixt our Cherson and her 


ther, pray you. 


neighbour City 


Send them away, with honour if you 


Have raged ere I was born — nay, ere 


please. 


my grandsire 


And soothing words and gifts — only, I 


First saw the light of heaven. Both 


pray you, 


our States 


Send them away, this Prince who doth 


Are crippled by this brainless enmity. 


despise us. 


And now the Empire,now the Scythian, 


And his false retinue of slaves. 


threatens 


Lama. My daughter, 


Destruction to our Cities, whom. 


Thy words are wanting in thy wonted 


united, 


love 


We might defy with scorn. Seeing 


And dutiful observance. 'Twere an 


this weakness, 


insult 


Thy father, wishful, ere his race be 


Unwashed by streams of bloodshed, 


run, 


should our City 


To save our much-loved Cherson, sent 


Scorn thus the guests it summoned. 


of late 


Come they must, 


Politic envoys to our former foe. 


And with all hospitable care and 


And now — i' faith, I am not so old, 


honour, 


'twould seem 


Else were thy sire dishonoured. Thou 


That I have lost my state-craft — comes 


wilt give them 


a message. 


A fitting welcome. 


The Prince Asander, heir of Bos- 


Gycia. Pardon me, my father, 


phorus, 


That I spoke rashly. I obey thy will. 


Touches our shores to-day, and pre- 


IGoing. 


sently 


Lama. Stay, Gycia. Dost thou 


Will ])e with us. 


know what 'tis to love ? 



!t 



GYCIA. 



3S1 



Gycia. Ay, thee, dear father. 


He does not ask thee to forsake thy 


Lama. Nay, I know it well. 


home. 


But has no noble youth e'er touched 


But leaves for thee his own. All tongues 


thy heart ? 


together 


Gycia. None, father, Heaven be 


Are full of praise of him : virgin in love, 


praised ! The young Irene 


A brave youth in the field, as we have 


Was with me when thou cam'st, and 


proved 


all her life 


In many a mortal fight ; a face and form 


Seems blighted by this curse of love — 


Like a young god's. I would, my love, 


for one 


thy heart 


Whose name she hides, with whom in 


Might turn to him, and find thy happi- 


Bosphorus 


ness 


She met, when there she sojourned. 


In that which makes me happy. I am 


Her young brother. 


old 


The noble Theodorus, whom thou 


And failing, and I fain would see thee 


knowest. 


blest 


Lets all the world go by him and grows 


Before I die, and at thy knees an heir 


pale 


To all my riches, and the State of 


For love, and pines, and wherefore ? — 


Cherson 


For thy daughter, 


From anxious cares delivered, and 


Who knows not what love means, and 


through thee. 


cannot brook 


Gycia. Father, we are of the Athe- 


Such brain-sick folly. Nay, be sure. 


nian race. 


good father, 


Which was the flower of Hellas. Ours 


I love not thus, and shall not. 


the fame 


Lama. Well, well, girl. 


Of Poets, Statesmen, Orators, whose 


Thou wilt know it yet. I fetter not 


works 


thy choice, 


x\nd thoughts upon the forehead of 


But if thou couldst by loving bind 


mankind 


together 


Shine like a precious jewel ; ours the 


Not two hearts only, but opposing 


glory 


peoples ; 


Of those great Soldiers who by sea and 


Supplant by halcyon days long years of 


land 


strife, 


Scattered the foemen to the winds of 


And link them in unbroken harmony ; — 


heaven, 


Were this no glory for a woman, this 


First in the files of time. And though 


No worthy price of her heart ? 


our mother, 


Gycia. Tell me, I pray. 


Our Athens, sank, crushed by the might 


What mean you by this riddle ? 


of Rome, 


Lama. Prince Asander 


What is Rome now ? — An Empire rent 


Comes here to ask your hand, and with 


in twain ; 


it take 


An Empire sinking 'neath the unwieldy 


A gracious dower of peace and amity. 


weight 



382 



GYCIA. 



Of its own power ; an Empire where 

the Senate 
]\.anks lower than the Circus, and a 

wanton 
Degrades the Imperial throne. But 

though to its fall 
The monster totters, this our Cherson 

keeps 
The bravery of old, and still maintains 
The old Hellenic spirit and some 

likeness 
Of the fair Commonwealth ^\'hich ruled 

the world. 
Surely, my father, 'tis a glorious spring 
Drawn from the heaven-kissed summits 

whence vv^e come ; 
And shall we, then, defile our noble 

blood 
By mixture with this upstart tyranny 
Which fouls the Hellenic pureness of 

its source 
In countless bastard channels ? If our 

State 
Ask of its children sacrifice, 'tis well. 
It shall be given ; only I prithee, 

father, 
Seek not that I should with barbaric 

blood 
Taint the pure stream, which flows 

from Pericles. 
Let me abide unwedded, if I may, 
A Greek girl as before. 

Lama. Daughter, thy choice 

Is free as air to accept or to reject 
This suitor ; only, in the name of 

Cherson, 
Do nothing rashly, and meanwhile take 

care 
That nought that fits a Grecian State 

be wanting 
To do him honour. 

Gycia. Sir, it shall be done. 



SCENE II.— Outside the palace 
OF Lamachus. 

Megacles and Courtiers. 

Meg. Well, my lords, and so this is 
the palace. A grand palace, forsooth, 
and a fine reception to match ! Why, 
these people are worse than barbarians. 
They are worse than the sea, and that 
was inhospitable enough. The saints 
be praised that that is over, at any rate. 
Oh, the intolerable scent of pitch, and 
the tossing and the heaving ! Heaven 
spare me such an ordeal again ! I 
thought I should have died of the 
smells. And here, can it be? Is it 
possible that there is a distinct odour 
of — pah ! what ? Oils, as I am a 
Christian, and close to the very palace 
of the Archon ! What a detestable 
people ! Some civet, good friends, 
some civet ! 

\st Court, Here it is, good Mega- 
cles. You did not hope, surely, to find 
republicans as sweet as those who live 
cleanly under a King? But here are 
some of their precious citizens at last. 

Enter Citizens hurriedly. 

1st Citizen. I pray you, forgive us, 
gentlemen. We thought the Prince 
would take the land at the other quay, 
and had prepared our welcome accord- 
ingly. 

Meg. Who are these men ? 

1st Court. They are honourable 
citizens of Cherson. 

Meg. Citizens ! They will not do 
for me. The Count of the Palace 
shovrld be here with the Grand Cham- 
berlain to meet my Master. 

\st at. Your Master? Oh! then 
you are a serving man, as it would 



SCENE n. 



GYCJA. 



3J^3 



seem. Well, my good man, when 
comes your Master ? 

Meg. Oh, the impertinent scoun- 
drel ! Do you know, sir, who I am ? 

\si Cif. Probably the Prince's at- 
tendant, his lackey, or possibly his ste- 
ward. I neither know nor care. 

Meg. Oh, you barbarian ! Where 
is the Count of the Palace, I say ? 

\st Cit. Now, citizen, cease this 
nonsense. We have not, thank Heaven, 1 
any such foolish effeminate functionary. 

Meg. No Count of the Palace ? I 
Heavens ! what a crew ! Well, if | 
there is none, where are your leading 
nobles ? where the Respectable and 
Illustrious ? You are certainly not 
Illustrious nor .Respectable ; you pro- 
bably are not even Honourable, or if 
you are you don't look it. 

\st Cit. What, you wretched popin- 



jay of a serving man 
dress a Greek citizen in 



! You dare ad- 



that 



way 



Take that, and that ! {^Beats him. 

\st Court. Draw, gentlemen ! 
These are ruftians ! \They fight. 

Enter Asander. 

Asan. Put up your swords, gentle- 
men. Why, fellows, what is this ? Is 
this your hospitality to your guests ? 

\st Cit. Nay, sir ; but this servant 
of yours has been most insolent, and 
has abused and insulted our State and 
its manners. He told us that we were 
not men of honour j and some of us, 
sir, are young, and have hot blood, 
and, as Greek citizens of Cherson, will 
not bear insults. 

Asan. Insolent upstarts, you are 
not worthy of our swords ! Come, my 
Lord Megacles, heed them not. Here 
is their master. 



Enter Lamaciius and Senators. 

Lama. We bid you heartfelt wel- 
come, Prince, to Cherson. 
That we have seemed ^o fail to do you 

honour 
Comes of the spite of fortune. For 

your highness, 
Taking the land at the entrance of the 

port. 
Missed what of scanty pomp our homely 

manners 
Would fain have offered ; but we pray 

you think 
'Twas an untoward accident, no more. 
Welcome to Cherson, Prince ! 

Asan. INIethinks, my lord, 

Scarce in the meanest State is it the 

custom 
To ask the presence of a noble guest 
With much insistance, and when he 

accepts 
The summons, and has come, to set on him 
With insolent dogs like these. 

Lama. Nay, Prince, I pray you. 

What is it that has been ? 

Asan. Our chamberlain 

Was lately, in your absence, which your 

highness 
So glibly doth excuse, set on and beaten 
By these dogs here. 

Lama. Nay, sir, they are not dogs, 
But citizens of honour ; yet indeed 
Wanting, I fear, in that deep courtesy 
Which from a stranger and a guest 

refuses 
To take provoked offence. My lord, 

indeed 
I am ashamed that citizens of Cherson 
Should act so mean a part. Come, 

Prince, I pray you 
P'orget this matter, and be sure your 

coming 



384 



GYCIA. 



Fills me with joy. Go, tell the Lady { 

Gycia 
The Prince is safe in Cherson. 

Ejikr Gycia, Irene, Melissa, and 
T.aaies. Irene, seeing Asander, 
faints, and is withdrawn^ Gycia 
supporting her. Confusion, 

Meg. My Lord Asander, remember 
what is due to yourself and Bosphorus. 
Remember, when this merchant's 
daughter comes, you 7n7ist not treat her 
as an equal. Courtesy to a woman is 
all very well, but rank has greater 
claims still, especially when you have 
to deal with such people as these. 
Now, remember, you must make no 
obeisance at all ; and if you advance to 
meet her more than one step, you are 
lost for ever. These are the truly 
important things. 

Asan. Good Megacles, 

Forewarned I am forearmed. 

{Aside) Thou fluent trickster ! 
Fit head of such a State ! I would to 

Heaven 
I had never come ! 

Re-e7iter Gycia, 

Nay, nay, I thank the saints 
That I have come. Who is this peer- 
less creature ? 
Is this the old man's daughter? 

Lama. Prince Asander, 

This is my daughter, Gycia. Of the 

prince 
Thou hast heard many a time, my 
daughter. 
Gycia {conftscd). Ay ! — 

Indeed I 

Lama. Come, my girl, thou art 

not used 
To fail of words. 



Asan. Nay, sir, I pray you press 
her not to speak. 
And yet I fain would hear her. Artemis 
Showed not so fair, nor M'ith a softer 

charm 
Came Hebe's voice. 

Gycia. Nay, sir, I did not know 

A soldier could thus use a courtier's 

tongue. 
Asan, If being bred in courts would 

give me power 
To put my thought in words, then would 

I fain 
Be courtier for thy sake, 

Gycia. Ah, sir, you jest. 

The ways of courts we know not, but I 

bid thee 
Good welcome to our city, and I prithee 
Command whatever service our poor 

Cherson 
Can give whilst thou art here. (Vo 

Megacles) Pray you my lord, 
Accompany his Highness and our house- 
hold 
To the poor chambers which our homely 

state 
Allots for him. They are but poor, 

I know, 
For one who lives the stately life of 

kings ; 
But such as our scant means can reach 

they are. 
Meg. My lady, I have lived long 

time in courts. 
But never, in the palaces of Rome, 
Have I seen beauty such as yours, or 

grace 
More worthy of a crown. ( 7o Melissa) 

To you, my lady, 
I bow with most respectful homage. 

Surely 
The goddess Here has not left the 

earth 



SCENE III. 



GVCJA. 



385 



While you are here. I humbly take 

my leave 
For the present of your Highness with 

a thousand 
Obeisances, and to your gracious father 
Humbly I bend the knee. My Lord 

Asander, 
I do attend your Highness. 

Me/. What a man ! 

What noble manners ! What a polished 

air ! 
How poor to such a courtier our rude 

Court 
And humble manners show ! 

Asaji. Good Megacles, 

Get me to my chamber — quick, ere I 

o'erpass 
All reasonable limits. I am sjjed ; 
I am myself no more. 

Lama. Farewell awhile. 

We will welcome you at supper. 
[Exeunt all but Lamachus a7id 

Gycia. 
Lama. Well, my daughter, 

What think you of this hot-brained 

youth ? I' faith, 
I like his soldier's bluntness, and he 

seemed 
To be a little startled, as I thought. 
By something which he saw when thou 

didst come. 
Perchance it was the charm of one who 

came 
Among thy ladies took him. 

Gycia. Nay, my father, 

I think not so indeed. 

L^aina. Ah ! well, I am old. 

And age forgets. But this I tell thee, 

daughter : 
If in my youth I had seen a young 

man's gaze 
Grow troubled, and he should start, 
and his cheek pale, 



A young girl drawing near, I had 

almost thought 
Him suddenly in love. 

Gycia. Oh, nay indeed ! 

Who should be favoured thus ? There 

is no woman 
In our poor Cherson worthy that his 

gaze 
Might rest on her a moment. 

Lauta. Ah, my girl, 

Is it thus with thee? They say that 

love is blind, 
And thou art blind, therefore it may 

be, Gycia, 
That thou too art in love. Tell me 

how it is. 
Couldst thou love this man, if he loved 
thee ? 
Gycia {throwing herself on her father's 
neck). Father ! 

Lama. Say no more, girl. I am not 
so old as yet 
That I have quite forgotten my own 

youth, 
When I was young and loved ; and if 

I err not, 
I read love's fluttering signals on thy 

cheek. 
And in his tell-tale eyes. But listen ! 

Music ! 
We must prepare for supper with our 
guests. 



SCENE III.— A STREET IN 

Cherson. 



Megacles ; aftei-^vards Melissa. 

Megacles. Well, it is time for the 
banquet. Somehow, this place im- 
proves on acquaintance, after all. Poor, 
of course, and rude to a degree. But 
truly the Lady Gycia is fair — as fair, 
2 c 



386 



GYC7A. 



indeed, as if she was the Emperor's 
daughter. She is a beautiful creature, 
truly. But give pie that delightful lady- 
in-waiting of hers, the Lady Melissa. 
What grace ! what rounded proportions ! 
I like mature beauty. She is as like the 
late divine Empress as two peas, and 
I thought — I dare say I was wrong, but 
I really thought — I made an impression. 
Poor things ! poor things ! They can't 
help themselves. We courtiers really 
ought to be very careful not to abuse 
our power. It is positive cruelty. The 
contest is too unequal. It makes one 
inclined sometimes to put on the 
manners of a clown, so as to give them 
a chance. Nay, nay, you might as well 
ask the Ethiopian to change his skin as 
a courtier his fine manners. By all the 
saints ! here she comes in propriA 
perso7i/i. 

Enter the Lady Melissa. 

Mel. Heavens ! it is the strange 
nobleman. I am sure I am all of a 
flutter. 

Aleg. [advancing 7mth formal bows). 
My lady, I am enchanted [botas again ; 
then takes several steps to the rights then 
to the lefty and bozvs). What a wonder- 
ful good fortune ! Ever since I had 
the honour to see you just now, I have 
only lived in the hope of seeing you 
again. 

Mel. [curtsying). Oh, my lord, you 
great courtiers can find little to interest 
you in our poor little Court and its 
humble surroundings. 

Meg. Madam, I beg ! not a word ! 
I was just thinking that you exactly 
resembled the late divine Empress. 

Mel. Oh, my lord, forbear ! The 
Empress I and I have never been out 



of Cherson ! You flatter me, you 
flatter me, indeed. That is the way 
with all you courtiers from Constanti- 
nople. Now, if you had said that my 
Lady Gycia was beautiful 

Meg. My dear lady, I do not ad- 
mire her in the least. She has no 
manners, really — nothing, at any rate, 
to attract a man of the great world ; a 
mere undeveloped girl, with all the 
passion to come. No, no, my good 
lady, give me a woman who has lived. 
We courtiers know manners and breed- 
ing v;hen we see them, and yours are 
simply perfect, not to say Imperial. 

Mel. What a magnificent nature ! 
Well, to say the truth, the Lady Gycia 
is not at all to my taste. It is a cold, 
insipid style of beauty, at the best ; and 
she is as self-willed and as straitlaced 
as a lady abbess. I suppose she is well 
matched with the Prince Asander ? 

Meg. Well, he is a handsome lad 
enough, and virtuous, but weak, as 
youth always is, and pliable. Now, 
for myself, I am happy to say I am 
steadfast and firm as a rock. 

Mel. Ah, my lord, if all women saw 
with my eyes, there would not be such 
a run after youth. Give me a mature 
man, who has seen the world and knows 
something of life and manners. 

Meg. What an intelligent creature ! 
Madam, your sentiments do you credit. 
I beg leave to lay at your feet the 
assurance of my entire devotion. 

Mel. Oh, my lord, you are too good ! 
Why, what a dear, condescending crea- 
ture ! — the manners of a Grand Cham- 
berlain and the features of an Apollo ! 

Meg. Permit me to enrol myself 
among the ranks of your humble slaves 
and admirers [kneels and kisses her 



GYCIA. 



387 



hand). But hark ! the music, and I 


Of Bosphorus ? Was it days since, or 


must marshal the guests to the banquet. 


years, 


Permit me to marshal you. 


Tell me, thou fair enchantress, who hast 


{^Exeunt with measured steps. 


wove 




So strong a spell around me ? 




Gyci(i' Nay, my lord ; 


SCENE IV.— The garden without 


Tell thou me first what magic 'tis hath 


THE BANQUETING-ROOM. MOON- 


turned 


LIGHT. The sea in the distance, 


A woman who had scoffed so long at 


WITH the harbour. 


love 




Until to-day— to-day, whose blessed 


Asander and Gycia descend the steps 


night 


of the palace sloxoly together. Music 


Is hung so thick with stars— to feel as I, 


heard from- within the hall. 


That I have found the twin life which 


Asan. Come, Gycia, let us take the 


the gods 


soft sweet air 


Retained when mine was fashioned. 


Beneath the star of love. The festive 


and must turn 


lights 


To what so late was strange, as the 


Still burn within the hall, where late 


flower turns 


we twain 


To the sun ; ay, though he withers her, 


Troth-plighted sate, and I from out 


or clouds 


thine eyes 


Come 'twixt her and her light, turns 


Drank long, deep draughts of love 


still to him, 


stronger than wine. 


And only gazing lives. 


And still the minstrels sound their 


Asan, Thou perfect woman ! 


dulcet strains, 


And art thou, then, all mine ? What 


Which then I heard not, since my ears 


have I done. 


were filled 


What have I been, that thus the favour- 


With the sweet music of thy voice. 


ing gods 


My sweet. 


And the consentient strength of hostile 


How blest it is, left thus alone with 


States 


love. 


Conspire to make me happy ? Ah ! I 


To hear the love-lorn nightingales com- 


fear, 


plain 


Lest too great happiness be but a snare 


Beneath the star-gemmed heavens, and 


Set for our feet by Fate, to take us 


drink cool airs 


fast 


Fresh from the summer sea! There 


And then despoil our lives. 


sleeps the main 


Gycia. My love, fear not. 


Which once I crossed unwilling. Was 


We have found each other, and no power 


it years smce. 


has strength 


In some old vanished life, or yesterday? 


To put our lives asunder. 


When saw I last my father and the 


Asan. Thu I seal 


shores 


Our contract with a kiss. [A'isses her. 



388 



GYCIA. 



, Gycia. Oh, happiness ! 


That never had I looked upon a 


To love and to be loved ! And yet 


woman 


methinks 


With thought of love before, though it 


Love is not always thus. To some he 


may be 


brings 


That some had thought of me, being a 


Deep disappointment only, and the 


Prince 


pain 


And heir of Bosphorus. 


Of melancholy years. I have a lady 


Gycia. Not for thyself ; 


Who loves, but is unloved. Poor soul ! 


That could not be. Deceiver ! 


she lives 


Asan, Nay, indeed ! 


A weary life. Some youth of Bosphorus 


Gycia. Oh, thou dear youth ! 


Stole her poor heart. 


Asan. I weary for the day 


Asaii. Of Bosphorus saidst thou ? 


When we our mutual love shall crown 


And her name is ? 


with marriage. 


Gycia. Irene. Didst thou know 


Gycia. Not yet, my love, we are so 


her ? 


happy now. 


Asan. Nay, love, or if I did I have 


Asan. IBut happier then, dear 


forgot her. 


Gycia. 


Gycia, Poor soul ! to-day when first 


Gycia. Nay, I know not 


we met, she saw 


If I could bear it and live. But hark, 


Her lover 'midst thy train and swooned 


my love ! 


away. 


The music ceases, and the sated guests 


Asan. Poor heart ! This shall be 


Will soon be sped. Thou must resume 


seen to. Tell me, Gycia, 


thy place 


Didst love me at first sight ? 


Of honour for a little. I must go, 


Gycia. Unreasonable, 


If my reluctant feet will bear me 


To bid me tell what well thou knowest 


hence. 


already. 


To dream of thee the livelong night. 


Thou know'st I did. And when did 


Farewell, 


love take thee ? 


Farewell till morning. All the saints 


Asan. I was wrapt up in spleen and 


of heaven 


haughty pride. 


Have thee in keeping ! 


When, looking up, a great contentment 


Asan. Go not yet, my sweet ; 


took me, 


And yet I bid thee go. Upon thy lips 


Shed from thy gracious eyes. Nought 


I set love's seal, thus, thus. 


else I saw. 


\Kisses her. They einbrace. 


Than thy dear self. 


Good night ! 


Gycia. And hadst thou ever loved ? 


Gycia. Good night ! 


Asan. Never, dear Gycia. 


\Exit Gycia. 


I have been so rapt in warlike enter- 




prises 


Enter Irene unperccived. 


Or in the nimble chase, all my youth 


Asan. Ah, sweetest, best of women ! 


long, 


paragon 



SCEKE IV. 



GYCIA. 



389 



Of all thy sex, since first thy ancestress 
Helen, the curse of cities and of men, 
Marshalled the hosts of Greece ! But 

she brought discord ; 
Thou, by thy all-compelling sweetness, 

peace 
And harmony for strife. What have 

I done, 
I a rough soldier, like a thousand others 
Upon our widespread plains, to have 

won this flower 
Of womanhood — this jewel for the 

front 
Of knightly pride to wear, and, wear- 
ing it, 
Let all things else go by? To think 

that I, 
Fool that I was, only a few hours since, 
Bemoaned the lot which brought me 

here and bade me 
Leave my own land, which now sinks 

fathoms deep 
Beyond my memory's depths, and scarce 

would deign 
To obey thee, best of fathers, when thy 

wisdom 
Designed to make me blest ! Was ever 

woman 
So gracious and so comely ? And I 

scorned her 
For her Greek blood and love of 

liberty ! 
Fool ! purblind fool ! there is no other 

like her ; 
I glory being her slave. 

Irene. I pray you, pardon me, my 

Lord Asander. 
I seek the Lady Gycia ; is she here ? 
Asan. No, madam ; she has gone, 

and with her taken 
The glory of the night. But thou dost 

love her — 
Is it not so, fair lady ? 



/;v. Ay, my lord, 

For we have lived together all our 

lives ; 
I could not choose but love. 

Asan. Well said indeed. 

Tell me, and have I seen thy face 

before ? 
A something in it haunts me. 

Ire. Ay, my lord. 

Am I forgot so soon ? 

Asan. Indeed ! Thy name ? 

Where have I seen thee ? 

Ire. Where? Dost thou, then, ask? 
Asan. Ay ; in good truth, my 
treacherous memory 
Betrays me here. 

Ire. Thou may est well forget 

My name, if thou hast quite forgot its 
owner. [ PFee/>s. 

I am called Irene. 

Asan, Strange ! the very name 

My lady did relate to me as hers 
Who bears a hopeless love. Weep 

not, good lady ; 
Take comfort. Heaven is kind. 

Ire. Nay, my good lord, 

What comfort? He I love loves not 

again, 
Or not me, but another. 

Asan. Ah, poor lady ! 

I pity you indeed, now I have known 
True recompense of love. 

Ire. Dost thou say pity? 

And pity as they tell's akin to love. 
W^hat comfort is for me, my Lord 

Asander, 
Who love one so exalted in estate 
That all return of honourable love 
Were hopeless, as if I should dare to 

raise 
My eyes to Cresar's self? What 

comfort have I, 
If lately I have heard this man I love 



390 



GYCIA. 



ACT II. 



Communing with his soul, when none 


Asan. Rise, lady, rise ; 


seemed near, 


I am not worthy such devotion. 


Betray a heart flung prostrate at the 


Ire. Take me 


feet 


Over seas ; I care not where. I'll be 


Of another, not myself; and well I 


thy slave. 


know 


Thy sea-boy ; follow thee, ill-housed. 


Not Lethe's waters can wash out 


disguised. 


remembrance 


Through hardship and through peril, so 


Of that o'ermastering passion — naught 


I see 


but death 


Thy face sometimes, and hear some- 


Or hopeless depths of crime ? 


times thy voice. 


Asan. Lady, I pity 


For I am sick with love. 


Thy case, and pray thy love may meet 


Asatt. Lady, I prithee 


return. 


Forget these wild words. I were less 


Ire. Then wilt thou be the suppliant 


than man 


to thyself, 


Should I remember them, or take the 


And willing love's requital, Oh, requite 


gift 


it ! 


Which 'tis not reason offers. I knew 


T/iou art my love, Asander — thou. 


not 


none other. 


Thy passion nor its object, nor am free 


There is naught I would not face, if I 


To take it, for the vision of my soul 


might win thee. 


Has looked upon its sun, and turns no 


That I a woman should lay bare my 


more 


soul ; 


To any lowerjlight. 


Disclose the virgin secrets of my heart 


Ire. My Lord Asander, 


To one who loves me not, and doth 


She is not for thee ; she cannot make 


despise 


thee happy, 


The service I would tender ! 


Nor thou her. Oh, believe me ! I am 


Asan. Cease, I pray you ; 


full 


These are distempered words. 


Of boding thoughts of the sure fatal 


Ire. Nay, they are true. 


day 


And come from the inner heart. Leave 


Which shall dissolve in blood the bonds 


these strange shores 


which love 


And her you love. I know her from a 


To-day has plighted. If thou wilt not 


child. 


take me. 


She is too high and cold for mortal 


Then get thee gone alone. I see a 


love ; 


fire 


Too wrapt in duty, and high thoughts 


Which burns more fierce than love, and 


of State, 


it consumes thee. 


Artemis and Athene fused in one. 


Fly with me, or alone, but fly. 


Ever to throw her life and maiden 


Asan. Irene, 


shame 


Passion distracts thy brain. I pray 


As I do at thy feet. [JiTnee/s. 


you, seek 



GYCIA. 



39) 



Some mutual love as I. My heart is 

fixed, 
And gone beyond recall. [£xiL 

Enter Theodorus ttnseen. 

Ire. (zveeping passionately). Dis- 
graced ! betrayed ! 
Rejected ! All the madness of my 

love 
Flung back upon me, as one spurns a 

gift 
"Who scorns the giver. That I love 

him still. 
And cannot hate her who has robbed 

me of him ! 
I shall go mad with shame ! 

Tkeo. Great Heaven ! sister. 

What words are these I hear? My 

father's daughter 
Confessing to her shame ! [Irene wt^iZ-j 
Come, tell me, woman ; 
I am thy brother and protector, tell 

me 
What mean these words ? 

Ire. Nay, nay, I cannot, brother. 
They mean not what they seem, indeed 

they do not. 
Theo. They mean not what they 

seem ! Thou hast been long 
In Bosphorus, and ofttimes at the Court 
Hast seen the Prince. W^hen he to-day 

comes hither, 
Thou swoonest at the sight. I, seek- 
ing thee. 
Find thee at night alone, he having left 

thee, 
Lamenting for thy shame. Wouldst 

have me credit 
Thy innocence ? Speak, if thou hast a 

word 
To balance proofs like these, or let thy 

silence' 
Condemn thee. 



Ire. {after a pause, and slotvly, as if 

calculating consequences). Then 

do I keep silence, brother. 
And let thy vengeance fall. 

Theo. Oh, long-dead mother, 

Who now art with the saints, shut fast 

thy ears 
Against thy daughter's shame ! These 

are the things 
That make it pain to live : all precious 

gifts, 
Honour, observance, virtue, flung away 
For one o'ermastering passion. Why 

are we 
Above the brute so far, if we keep still 
The weakness of the brute ? Go from 

my sight. 
Thou vile, degraded wretch. For him 

whose craft 
And wickedness has wronged thee, 

this I swear — 
I will kill him, if I can, or he shall 

me. 
I will call on him to draw, and make 

my sword 
Red with a villain's blood. 

Ire. {eagerly). Nay, nay, my 

brother. 
That would proclaim my shame ; and 

shouldst thou slay him. 
Thou wouldst break thy lady's heart. 
Theo. Doth she so love him ? 

Ire. Ay, passionately, brother. 
Tkeo. Oh, just Heaven ! 

And oh, confused world ! 
How are we fettered here ! I may not 

kill 
A villain who has done my sister 

wrong. 
Since she I love has given her heart to 

him, 
And hangs upon his life. I would not 

pain 



392 



cyciA. 



ACT 111. 



My Gycia with the smallest, feeblest 

pang 
That wrings a childish heart, for all the 

world. 
How, then, to kill her love, though 

killing him 
Would rid the world of a villain, and 

would leave 
My lady free to love? 'Twere not 

love's part 
To pain her thus, not for the wealth 

and power 
Of all the world heaped up. I tell 

thee, sister. 
Thy paramour is safe — I will not seek 
To do him hurt j but thou shalt go to- 
night 
To my Bithynian castle. Haply thence, 
After long penances and recluse days. 
Thou mayst return, and I may bear 

once more 
To see my sister's face. 

Ire. Farewell, my brother ! 

I do obey ; I bide occasion, waiting 
For what the years may bring. 

T/ieo. Repent thy sin. 

ACT IH. 

SCENE I. — Cherson, two years 
AFTER. The palace of Lama- 

CHUS. 

Asander and Gycia. 

G}/da. What day is this, Asander? 

Canst thou tell me ? 
Asan. Not I, my love. All days 
are now alike ; 
The weeks fleet by, the days equivalent 

gems 
Strung on a golden thread. 

Gycia. Thou careless darling ! 

I did not ask thee of the calendar. 



Dost think a merchant's daughter knows 

not that ? 
Nay, nay ; I only asked thee if thou 

knewest 
If aught upon this day had ever brought 
Some great change to thee. 

Asan. Sweetest, dearest wife, 

Our marriage ! Thinkest thou I should 

forget, 
Ay, though the chills of age had froze 

my brain, 
That day of all my life ? 

Gycia. Dost thou regret it ? 

I ^/^^n/^ thou dost not, but 'tis sweet to 

hear 
The avowal from thy lips ? 

Asan. Nay, never a moment. 

And thou ? 

Gycia. Nay, never for a passing 

thought. 
I did not know what life was till I 

knew thee. 
Dost thou remember it, how I came 

forth, 
Looking incuriously to see the stranger, 
And lo ! I spied my love, and could 

not murmur 
A word of courtesy ? 

Asan. Dost thou remember 

How I, a feverish and hot-brained 

youth,! 
Full of rash pride and princely arro- 
gance. 
Lifted my eyes and saw a goddess 

coming 

Gycia. Nay, a weak woman only. 
Asan. And was tamed 

By the first glance ? 

Gycia. What ! are we lovers still, 
After two years of marriage ? 

Asan. Is it two years, 

Or twenty ? By my faith, I know not 
which. 



GVC/A. 



393 



For happy lives glide on like seaward 

streams 
Which keep their peaceful and un- 
ruffled course 
So smoothly that the voyager hardly 

notes 
The progress of the tide. Ay, two 

years 'tis, 
And now it seems a day, now twenty 

years, 
But always, always happy. 

[Embraces Gycia. 

Gycia. Yet, my love. 

We have known trials too. My 

honoured sire 
Has gone and left us since. 

Asan. Ay, he had reaped 

The harvest of his days, and fell asleep 
Amid the garnered sheaves. 

Gycia. Dearest, I know 

He loved thee as a son, and always 

strove 
To fit thee for the place within our 

State 
Which one day should be thine. Some- 
times I think, 
Since he has gone, I have been covetous 
Of thy dear love, and kept thee from 

the labour 
Of State-craft, and the daily manly 

toils 
Which do befit thy age ; and I have 

thought. 
Viewing thee with the jealous eyes of 
love, 
i That I ^have marked some shade of 
, melancholy 

\ Creep on when none else saw thee, and 
j desired 

If only I might share it. 

Asan. Nay, my love, 

I have been happy truly, though some- 
times. 



It may be, I have missed the clear, brisk 

air 
Of the free plains ; the trumpet-notes 

of war. 
When far against the sky the glint of 

spears 
Lit by the rising sun revealed the 

ranks 
Of the opposing host, the thundering 

onset 
Of fierce conflicting squadrons, and the 

advance 
Of the victorious hosts. Oh for the 

vigour 
And freshness of such life ! But I 

have chosen 
To sleep on beds of down, as Coesar 

might. 
And live a woman's minion. 

Gycia. Good my husband, 

Thou shouldst not speak thus. I would 

have thee win 
Thy place in the Senate, rule our 

Cherson's fortunes. 
Be what my father was without the 

name, 
And gain that too in time. 

Asan. What ! You would have me 
Cozen, intrigue, and cheat, and play 

the huckster, 
As your republicans, peace on their 

lips 
And subtle scheming treaties, till the 

moment 
When it is safe to spring ? Would you 

have me cringe 
To the ignorant mob of churls, through 

whose sweet voices 
The road to greatness lies ? Nay, nay ; 

I am 
A King's son, and of Bosphorus, not 

Cherson — 
A Scythian more than Greek. 



394 



GYCIA. 



Gycia, Nay, my good lord, 

Scythian or Greek, to me thou art more 

dear 
Than all the world beside. Yet will 

not duty, 
The memory of the dead, the love of 

country, 
The pride of the great race from which 

we spring, 
Suffer my silence wholly, hearing thee. 
It is not true that men Athenian-born 
Are of less courage, less of noble nature, 
More crafty in design, less frank of 

purpose, 
Than are thy countrymen. They have 

met and fought them, 
Thou knowest with what fate. For 

polity 
I hold it better that self-governed men 
Should, using freedom, but eschewing 

license. 
Fare to what chequered fate the v»'ill of 

Heaven 
Reserves for them, than shackled by 

the chains 
The wisest tyrant, gilding servitude 
"With seeming gains, imposes. We are 

free 
In speech, in council, in debate, in act, 
As when our great Demosthenes hurled 

back 
Defiance to the tyrant. Nay, my lord, 
Forgive my open speech. I have not 

forgot 
That we are one in heart and mind and 

soul. 
Knit in sweet bonds for ever. Put 

from thee 
This jaundiced humour. 
If State-craft please not, by the head- 
long chase 
Which once I know thou lovcdst. Do 

not grudge 



To leave me ; for to-day my bosom 

friend, 
After two years of absence, comes to me. 
I shall not feel alone, having Irene. 
Asan. Whom dost thou say ? 

Irene ? 
Gycia. Yes, the same. 

She was crossed in love, poor girl, dost 

thou remember. 
When we were wed ? 

Asan. Gycia, I mind it well. 

Send her away — she is no companion 

for thee ; 
She is not fit, I say. 

Gycia. What is't thou say est ? 

Thou canst know nought of her. Nay, 

I remember. 
When I did ask thee if thou knewest her 
At Bosphorus, thou answeredst that 
thou didst not. 
Asan. I know her. She is no fit 

mate for thee. 
Gycia. Then, thou didst know her 

when thy tongue denied it. 
Asan. How 'tis I know her boots 
not ; I forbid 
My wife to know that woman. Send 
her hence. 
Gycia. Nay, nay, my lord, it profits 
not to quarrel. 
Thou art not thyself. Either thou 

knew'st her name 
When we were wedded, or unreasoning 

spleen 
Doth blind thy judgment since. Thou 

canst not know her 
V/ho has been absent. 

Asan. Ask no more, good wife ; 

I give no reason. 

Gycia. Nay, indeed, good husband, 
Thou hast no reason, and without good 

reason 
I will not spurn my friend. 



GVC/A. 



395 



Asafi. Gycia, forgive me ; 

I spoke but for our good, and I will 

tell thee 
One day what stirs within me, but to- 
day 
Let us not mar our happy memories 
By any shade of discord. 

Gycia. Oh, my love, 

Forgive me if I have seemed, but for a 

moment, 
To fail in duty. I am all, all thine ; 
I have nought but thee to live for. 

Childish hands 
And baby voices lisping for their mother 
Are not for me, nor thee; but, all in 

all, 
We joy together, we sorrow together, 

and last 
Shall die, when the hour conies, as 

something tells me, 
Both in the selfsame hour. 

Asan. Nay, wife, we are young ; 

Our time is not yet come. Let us 

speak now 
Of what I know thou holdest near thy 

heart. 
I do remember that it was thy wish 
To celebrate thy father's name and 

fame 
By some high festal. If thy purpose 

hold 
For such observance, the sad day which 

took him 
Returns a short time hence ; I will 

employ 
Whatever wealth is mine to do him 

honour, 
And thee, my Gycia. Honouring the 

sire, 
I honour too the child. 

Gycia. My love, I thank thee 

For this spontaneous kindness, and I 

love thee ; 



I am all thine own again. Come, let 

us go ; 
Nor spare the wealth wherewith his 

bounty blest us 
To do fit honour to the illustrious dead. 
{Exeunt. 



SCENE IL— The same. 
Megacles, Courtiers ; afterzuards 

ASANDER. 

Meg. Well, my lords, two years 
have passed since we left our Bosphorus, 
and I see no sign of our returning 
there. If it were not for that delight- 
ful Lady Melissa, whose humble slave 
I am always (Courtiers laugh)^ I would 
give all I am worth to turn my back 
upon this scurvy city and its republican 
crew. But my Lord Asander is so 
devoted to his fair lady — and, indeed, I 
can hardly wonder at it — that there 
seems no hope of our seeing the old 
shores again. I thought he would have 
been off long ago. 

\st Court. A model husband the 
Prince, a paragon of virtue. 

2nd Court. Well, there is noigreat 
merit in being faithful to a rich and 
beautiful woman. I think I could be 
as steady as a rock under the like con- 
ditions. 

yd Court. Well, mind ye, it is not 
every man who could treat the very 
marked overtures of the fair Lady 
Irene as he did. And he had not seen 
his wife then, either. No ; the man is 
a curious mixture, somewhat cold, and 
altogether constant, and that is not a 
bad combination to keep a man straight 
with the sex. Poor soul ! do you re- 
member how she pursued him at Bos- 



396 



GYCIA. 



ACT TIT. 



phoius, and how she fainted away at 
the wedding ? They say she is coming 
back speedily, in her right mind. She 
has been away ever since, no one knows 
where. That solemn brother of hers 
conveyed her away privily. 

1st Court, I hate that fellow — a 
canting hypocrite, a solemn impostor ! 

2.nd Court. So say we all. But 
mark you, if the Lady Irene comes 
back, there will be mischief before long. 
What news from Bosphorus, my Lord 
Megacles ? 

Alcg. I have heard a rumour, my 
lord, that his Majesty the King is ailing. 

\st Court. Nay, is he? Then there 
may be a new King and a new Queen, 
and we shall leave this dog-hole and 
live at home like gentlemen once more. 

3ri/ Court. Then would his sacred 
Majesty's removal be a blessing in 
disguise. 

2nd Court. Ay, indeed would it. 
Does the Prince know of it ? 

Meg. I have not told him aught, 
having, indeed, nothing certain to tell ; 
but he soon will, if it be true. But 
here his Highness comes. 

Enter Asander. 

My Lord Asander, your Highness's 
humble servant welcomes you with 
effusion. \Bows lozv. 

Asan. Well, my good Megacles, 
and you, my lords. There will be 
ample work for you all ere long. The 
Lady Gycia is projecting a great festival 
in memory of her father, and all that 
the wealth of Cherson can do to honour 
him will be done. There will be 
solemn processions, a banquet, and a 
people's holiday. Dost thou not spy 
some good ceremonial work there, my 



good Megacles? Why, thou wilt be 
as happy as if thou wert at Byzantium 
itself, marshalling the processions, 
arranging the banquet, ushering in the 
guests in due precedence, the shipowner 
before the merchant, the merchant be- 
fore the retailer. Why, what couldst 
thou want more, old Trusty ? {Laughs. 

Meg. Ah, my Lord Prince, your 
Highness is young. When you are as 
old as I am, you will not scoff at Cere- 
mony. This is the pleasantest day that 
I have spent since your Highness's 
wedding-day. I thank you greatly, and 
will do my best, your Highness. 

Asan. That I am sure of, good 
Megacles. Good day, my lords, good 
day. {Exeunt Megacles and Courtiers. 

Enter Messenger. 

Mess. My Lord Asander, a mes- 
senger from Bosphorus has just landed, 
bringing this letter for your Highness. 

Asan. Let me see it. [Reads) 
" Lysimachus to Asander sends greet- 
ing. Thy father is failing fast, and is 
always asking for his son. Thou art 
free, and must come to him before he 
dies. I have much to say to thee, 
having heard long since of a festival in 
memory of Lamachus to be held shortly. 
I will be with thee before then. Be 
ready to carry out the plan which I 
have formed for thy good, and will 
reveal to thee. Remember." 

My father ailing ? 
And asks for me, and I his only son 
Chained here inactive, while the old 

man pines 
In that great solitude which hems a 

throne, 
With none but hirelings round him. 

Dearest father, 



GYCIA. 



397 



I fear that sometimes in the happy years 
Which have come since, my wandering 

regards, 
Fixed on one overmastering thought, 

have failed 
To keep their wonted duty. If indeed 
This thing has been, I joy the time has 

come 
When I may show my love. But I 

forget ! 
The fetters honour binds are adamant ; 
I am free no more. Nay, nay, there is 

no bond 
Can bind a son who hears his father's 

voice 
Call from a bed of pain. I must go 

and will, 
Though all the world cry shame on my 

dishonour ; 
And with me I will take my love, my 

bride, 
To glad the old man's eyes. My mind 

is fixed ; 
I cannot stay, I cannot rest, away 
From Bosphorus. (6'«;;z;;z<7;;j- Messenger) 

^ ^, call the Lady Gycia. 
[Restitiics) Ay, and my oath, I had for- 
gotten it. 
I cannot bear to think what pitiless plot 
Lysimachus has woven for the feast. 
What it may be I know not, but I fear 
Some dark and dreadful deed. 'Twere 

well enough 
For one who never knew the friendly 

grasp 
Of hands that once were foemen's. 

But for me, 
Who have lived among them, come and 

gone with them. 
Trodden with them the daily paths of 

life. 
Mixed in their pleasures, shared their 

hopes and fears 



For two long happy years, to turn and 

doom 
Their city to ruin, and their wives and 

children 
To the insolence of rapine? Nay, I 

dare not. 
I will sail at once, and get me gone for 

ever. 
I will not tell my love that I am bound 
By her father's jealous fancies to return 
To Bosphorus no more. To break my 

oath! 
That were to break it only in the word. 
But keep it in the spirit. Surely Heaven 
For such an innocent perjury keeps no 

pains. 
But here she comes. 

Enier Gycia. 

Gycia. Didst send for me, my 

lord? 
Asan. Gycia, the King is ill, and 
asks for me ; 
He is alone and weak. 

Gycia. Then, fly to him 

At once, and I will follow thee. But 

stay ! 
Is he in danger ? 

Asan. Nay, not presently ; 

Only the increasing weight of years 

o'ersets 
His feeble sum of force. 

Gycia. Keeps he his bed ? 

Asan. Not yet as I have known. 
Gycia. Well then, dear heart, 

We yet may be in time if we should 

tarry 
To celebrate the honours we have vowed 
To my dead father. This day sennight 

brings 
The day which saw him die. 

Asan. Nay, nay, my sweet ; 

'Twere best we went at once. 



398 



GYCIA. 



ACT III. 



Gycia. My lord, I honour 

The love thou bearest him, but go I 

cannot, 
Until the feast is done. 'Tvvould cast 

discredit 
On every daughter's love for her dead 

sire, 
If I should leave this solemn festival 
With all to do, and let the envious 

crowd 
Carp at the scant penurious courtesy 
Of hireling honours by an absent 

daughter 
To her illustrious dead. 
Asan. {earnestly). My love, 'twere 
best 
We both were far away. 

Gycia. My lord is pleased 

To speak in riddles,but till reason speaks 
'Twere waste of time to listen. 

Asan. Nay, my wife, 

Such words become thee not, but to 

obey 
Is the best grace of woman. Were I 

able, 
I would tell thee all, I fear, for thee 

and me, 
But cannot. 

Gycia. Then, love, thou canst go 
alone, 
And I must follow thee. The Archon 

Zetho 
Comes presently, to order what remains 
To make the solemn festival do honour 
To the blest memory of Lamachus. 
Doubtless, he will devise some fitting 

pretext 
To excuse thy absence. 

Asan. Nay, thou must not ask him ; 
Breathe not a word, I pray. 

Gycia. My good Asander, 

What is it moves thee thus ? See, here 
he comes. 



Enter Zetho and Senators. 

Gycia. Good morrow, my Lord 
Zetho ! We were late, 
Debating of the coming festival. 
And how my lord the Prince, having 

ill news 
From Bosphorus, where the King his 

sire lies sick. 
Can bear no part in it. 

Zetho. I grieve indeed 

To hear this news, and trust that 

Heaven may send 
Swift comfort to his son, whom we all 

love. 
Asan. I thank thee, Archon, for 

thy courtesy ; 
And may thy wish come true. 

Gycia. And meantime, since my 

husband's heart is sore 
For his sire's lonelihood, our pur- 
pose is 
That he should sail to-morrow and go 

hence 
To Bosphorus, where I, the festival 
Being done, will join him later, and 

devote 
A daughter's loving care and tender 

hand 
To smooth the old man's sick-bed. 

Zetho. Nay, my daughter, 

I grieve this cannot be. The Prince 

Asander, 
Coming to Cherson only two years 

gone. 
Did pledge his solemn word to thy dead 

father 
That never would he seek, come foul 

or fair, 
To turn from Cherson homewards, and 

I marvel 
That never, in the years that since have 

passed 



GVC/A. 



399 



Amid the close-knit bonds of wedded 

lives, 
He has revealed this secret. We who 

rule , 
Our Cherson know through what blind 

shoals of fortune 
Our ship of state drives onward. And 

I dare not, 
Holding the rule which was thy father's 

once, 
Release him from the solemn pledge 

which keeps 
Our several States bound fast in amity, 
But each from the other separate, and 

each 
Free from the perils tangled intercourse 
Might breed for both. Indeed, it can- 
not be ; 
I grieve that so it is. 

Gycia. My Lord Asander, 

Are these things so indeed ? 

Asan. They are, my wife. 

A rash and heedless promise binds me 

fast. 
Which, in all frankness, I had never 

dreamt 
Could thus demand fulfilment. Who 

is there 
More loyal to the State than I ? Who 

is there 
Bound by such precious chains of love 

and faith 
As is thy husband ? If I said no word 
Of this before, it was that I would 

fain 
Forget this hateful compact. Sir, I 

beg you 
Let me go hence, and when the old 

man's sickness 
Is done, as Heaven will have it, take 

my word 
That I will be a citizen of Cherson 
Again, whate'er may come. 



Zetho. If the King dies. 

Then art thou straightway King of 

Bosphorus, 
Knowing the strength and weakness of 

our State, 
And having bound to thee by closest 

friendship 
Our chiefest citizens. Nay, nay, I dare 

not 
Relieve thee from the pledge. 

Asan. Thou hoary trickster, 

Speakest thou thus to me ? \_Dra'vs. 

Gycia {interposing). Great heavens ! 

Asander, 

Knowest thou what thou dost? {To 

Zetho) Pardon him, sir. 
He is not himself, I think, but half 

distraught. 
To bear himself thus madly. 

Zdho. Daughter, the State 

Knows to protect itself from insolence 
And arrogant pride like this, and it is 

certain 
'Twas a wise caution led thy honoured 

father 
To stipulate that such ungoverned 

passion 
Should be cut off from those conspiring 

forces 
From which combined came danger. 

Asan. Gycia, 

Hearest thou this schemer ? Dost thou 

know indeed 
That I am prisoned here, while my 

loved father 
Lies on the bed of death ? Dost thou 

distrust me, 
That thou dost speak no word ? 

Gycia. My lord, I cannot. 

The measure which my father's wisdom 

planned 
For the safety of the State, I, a weak 
woman. 



400 



GYCIA. 



Am too infirm to judge. Thou didst 

not tell me, 
Asking that I should fly with thee, the 

bonds 
By which thy feet were fettered. Had 

I known 
I never had consented. Had I gone, 
Breaking the solemn ordinance of State, 
I should have left with thee my former 

love, 
And sailed back broken-hearted. That 

thou grievest 
There is none knows as I, but oh, my 

love ! 
Though it be hard to bear, yet is grief 

lighter 
Than broken vows, and blighted honour, 

and laws 
Made to sustain the State, yet overset 
By one man's will. Dearest, we cannot 

go— 
Nor thou ; the State forbids it. I will 

pray 
Thy father may^'grow strong again, and 

sit 
Here at our hearth a. guest ; but this is 

certain — 
To Bosphorus we go not. And I pray 

you 
Make to my lord, who fills my father's 

place, 
What reparation thy ungoverned rage 
And hasty tongue demand. 

Asan. Thou cold Greek woman ! 

Of this, then, 'twas they warned me — 

a smooth tongue 
And a cold heart ; a brain by logic 

ruled, 
And not at all by love. Thou hast no 

pity, 

For pity shapes not into syllogisms ; 
Nor can affection ape philosophy, 
Nor natural love put on the formal robe 



Of cold too-balanced State-craft. Hear 

me, old man, 
And thou too, wife. 'Twere better, 

ay, far better. 
That I should get me gone, and my 

wife with me. 
Than be pent here unwilling ; but 

were it better 
Or were it worse, be sure I will not 

stay 
When duty calls me hence. Wife, wilt 
thou come ? 
Gycia. My lord, I cannot. 
Asan. Then, I go alone. 

Zetho. Nay, thou shalt not. Ho 
there ! arrest the Prince. 

[Guards arrest Asander. 

Asan. Unhand me. At your peril. 

[Drazsjs. 

Gycia. Oh, my husband ! [/F<?^/j. 



SCENE HI. — A ROOM in the palace. 

Irene ; aftcrzvards Gycia. 

Ire. What ! am I mad, or does 

some devilish power 
Possess me heart and soul ? I once 

loved Gycia ; 
I love Asander with o'ermastering love. 
And yet these frequent rumours of dis- 
sensions 
Marring the smooth course of their 

wedded life 
Bring me a swift, fierce joy. If aught 

befell 
To separate those lovers, then might 

Fate 
And Chance open for me the golden 

doors 
That lead to Love's own shrine ; and 

yet I know not 
If any power might melt to mutual love 



SCIiNE 111. 



GYCIA. 



401 



That too-cold heart. But still, no other 

chance 
Is left but this alone : if I should force 
Those loving souls apart, then 'twere 

my turn. 
Am I a monster, then, to will this 

wrong ? ; 

Nay, but a lovesick woman only, 

willing 
To dare all for her passion. Though I 

loathe 
Those crooked ways, yet love, despite 

myself. 
Drives me relentless onward. 

Etiter Gycia. 

Dearest lady, 
Why art thou thus cast down ? Some 

lovers' quarrel. 
To be interred with kisses ? 

Gycia. Nay, Irene, 

This is no lovers' quarrel. 

Ire. Tell me, Gycia, 

What was the cause ? 

Gycia. The King of Bosphorus 

Is ailing, and desires to see his son, 
Who fain would go to him. 

Ire. And thou refusedst 

To let thy lover go ? 

[Laughs mockingly. 

Gycia. Nay, 'twas not so ; 

But politic reasons of the State forbad 
The Prince's absence. 

Ire. Well, whate'er the cause, 

The old man fain would see his son, 

and thou 
Deniedst. 

Gycia. I denied him what the State 
Denied him, and no more. 

Ire. . The State denied him ! 

What does it profit thee to be the 

daughter 
Of Lamachus, if thou art fettered thus 



In each wish of thy heart ? If it were I, 
And he my love, I would break all 

bonds that came 
Between me and my love's desire. 

Gycia. Irene, 

Thou know'st not what thou say'st. 

Ire. It may be so ; 

/ do not love by halves. 

Gycia. I do not need 

That thou shouldst tutor me, who am 

so blest 
In love's requital. I have nought to 

learn 
From thee, who bearest unrequited love 
For one thou wilt not name. 

Ire. Wouldst thou that I 

Should name him ? Nay, it were best 

not, believe me. 
For me and thee. 

Gycia. Why, what were it to me, 
Thou luckless woman ? 

Ire. What were it to thee ? 

More than thou knowest, much. 

Gycia. And therefore 'tis 

That thou dost dare to tutor me to 

deal 
With the man I love, my husband. 

Ire. Gycia, 

Love is a tyrannous power, and brooks 

no rival 
Beside his throne. Dost thou, then, 

love indeed, 
Who aft so filled with duty ? 

Gycid. Do I love ? 

Ay, from the depths of my enamoured 

heart ! 
I am all his own to make or break at 

will. 
Only my duty to the State my mother 
And the thrice-blessed memory of my 

sire 
Forbids that t should sink my soul in 
his. 



402 



GVC/A. 



ACT III. 



Or, loving, grow unworthy. But, 


Gycta. What ! dost thou dare 


indeed. 


Malign my husband thus? I have 


Thou pleadest his cause as if thyself 


known his life 


did love him. 


From his own lips, and heard no word 


/re. As if I loved ! — as if ! 


of thee. 


Gjfda. Indeed, 'tis well 


/re. lie did confess he knew me. 


Thou didst not, were he free, for he, it 


Gyda. Ay, indeed, 


seems, 


Not that he did thee wrong. 


Has known of thee, and speaks not 


/re. My Lady Gycia, 


kindly words. 


Did ever man confess he wronged a 


I know not wherefore. 


woman ? 


Ire. Did he speak of me ? 


If thou believe not me, who am indeed 


Gya'a. Ay, that he did. 


Disgraced, and by his fault, thou once 


Ire. And what said he ? 


didst love 


Gya'a. I think 


My brother Theodorus — send for him. 


'Twere best thou didst not know. 


He is without, and waits me. Ask of 


/re. Tell me, I prithee ; 


him. 


I can bear to hear. 


Who has long known my secret. 


Gyda. 'Twas but a hasty word, 


Gya'a. I will ask him. 


And best forgotten. 


Thou wretched woman, since thou art 


/re. But I prithee tell me. 


polluted. 


What said he? 


Whate'er my love may be, go from my 


Gya'a. That 'twere best I were 


sight. 


alone 


And send thy brother. Then betake 


Than commercing with thee, since thou 


thyself 


wert not 


To a close prison in the haunted Tower, 


My fit companion. 


Till I shall free thee. Out of my sight. 


/re. Said he that, the coward ? 


I say. 


Gycia. I am his wife, Irene. 


Thou wanton ! {£xit Irene. 


Ire. What care I ? 


What have I done, how have I sinned. 


I have loved this man too well, before 


that Heaven 


he saw thee. 


Tortures me thus ? How can I doubt 


There, thou hast now my secret. I 


this creature 


have loved him, 


Speaks something of the truth ? Did he 


And he loved me, and left me, and 


not say 


betrayed me. 


At first he never knew that wanton's 


Was it for him to brand me with this 


name? 


stain ? 


Did he not afterwards betray such 


Unfit for thy companion ! If I 


knowledge 


be. 


Of her and of her life as showed the 


Whose fault is that but his, who found 


lie 


me pure 


His former words concealed ? And yet 


And left me what I am ? 


how doubt 



GYCIA. 



403 



My dear, who by two years of wedded 

love 
Has knit my soul to his ? I know how 

lightly 
The world holds manly virtue, but I 

hold 
The laws of honour are not made to bind 
Half of the race alone, leaving men 

licensed 
To break them when they will ; but 

dread decrees 
Binding on all our kind. But oh, my 

love, 
I will not doubt thee, till conviction 

bring 
Proofs that I dare not doubt ! 

Enter Theodorus. 

Thco. My Lady Gycia, 

I come at thy command. 

Gycia. Good Theodorus, 

Thou lovedst me once, I think ? 

Theo. I loved thee otice! 

Oh, heaven ! 

Gycia. I am in great perplexity 

And sorrow, and I call upon thy 

friendship 
To succour me, by frank and free 

confession 
Of all thou knowest. 

Theo. I can refuse thee nothing, 

Only I beg that thou wilt ask me 

nought 
That answered may give pain. 

Gycia. Nay, it is best 

That I know all. I could not bear to 

live 
In ignorance, and yet I fear to grieve 

thee 
By what I ask. Thy sister late has 

left me 

77ieo. Ask not of her, I pray ; I 
cannot answer. 



Gycia. Nay, by thy love I ask it. 

Answer me. 
Theo. Have me excused, I pray. 
Gycia. Then, I am answered. 

My husband, she affirms, betrayed her 

honour 
In Bosphorus, and now denies the 

crime. 
Thou knowest it true. 

Theo. Alas ! I cannot doubt it. 

I have known all for years. 

Gycia. Ye saints of heaven ! 

Is there no shame or purity in men. 
Nor room for trust in them ? I am a 

wife 
Who thought she did possess her 

husband wholly, 
Virgin with virgin. I have thought I 

knew 
His inmost heart, and found it 

innocent ; 
And yet while thus I held him, while I 

lay 
Upon his bosom, all these happy hours 
The venom of a shameful secret lurked 
Within his breast. Oh, monster of 

deceit. 
Thou never lovedst as I ! That I 

should give 
The untouched treasure of my virgin 

heart 
For some foul embers of a burnt-out love, 
And lavish on the waste a wanton left 
My heart, my soul, my life ! Oh, it is 

cruel ! 
I will never see him more, nor hear 

his voice. 
But die unloved and friendless. 

{IVeeps. 
Theo. {kneeling at her feet). Dearest 

Gycia, 
Thou canst not want a brother, friend, 

and lover 



404 



cyc/j. 



ACT III. 



While I am living. Oh, my love, my 

dear, 
Whom I have loved from childhood, 

put away 
This hateful marriage, free thee from 

the bonds 
Of this polluted wedlock, and make 

happy 
One who will love thee always ! 

£7i^er Lysimachus ttnperceivcd. 

Gycia. Rise, Theodorus. 

I have no love to give. I am a wife. 
Such words dishonour me. 

Theo. Forgive me, Gycia. 

I know how pure thy soul, and would 

not have thee 
Aught other than thou art. 

Gycia, I do forgive thee. 

'Twas love confused thy reason ; but 

be brave. 
Set a guard on thy acts, thy words, thy 

thoughts. 
'Tis an unhappy world ! 
[Theodorus kisses her hand and exit. 

Lys. Most noble lady. 

Forgive me if at an unfitting time. 
Amid the soft devoirs of gallantry, 
•I thus intrude unwilling ; but I seek 
The Prince Asander. 

Gycia. I have nought to hide 

My husband might not know. 

Lys. Then, thou art, doubtless, 

His wife, the Lady Gycia. Good my 

lady, 
With such a presence to become a 

crown. 
We would you were at Bosphorus. 

Gycia. 'Tis clear 

Thou art a stranger here, or thou 

wouldst know 
That never would I leave my native city 
To win the crown of Rome. 



Lys. Madam, 'tis pity. 

Gycia. Sir, this is courtly talk. You 

came to see 
My husband ; I will order that they 

send him 
At once to you. \Exit Gycia. 

Lys. That was indeed good fortune 

brought me hither 
When her lover knelt to her. I do not 

wonder 
That kneel he should, for she is 

beautiful 
As Helen's self. There comes some 

difference 
Between her and Asander, and 't\\'ere 

strange 
If I might not so work on't as to widen 
The breach good fortune sends me, and 

to bind. 
Through that which I have seen, the 

boy her husband, 
To execute my will. 

Enter Asander. 

Asan. Lysimachus^ 

I am rejoiced to see thee. 

Lys. Good my lord, 

How goes the world with thee ? Thou 

art in mien 
Graver than thou wast once. 

Asan. I am ill at ease ! 

I am ill at ease ! How does the King 
my father ? 
Lys. Alas ! sir, he is ailing, and I 
fear 
Will never mend. 

Asan. Is he in present danger ? 

L.ys, Ay, that he is. A month or 
less from this 
May see the end. 

Asan. Keeps he his bed as yet ? 

Lys. Nay, not yet, when I left him ; 
but his mind 



SCENE III. 



GYCIA. 



405 



Turns always to his absent son with 

longing, 
And sometimes, as it were 'twixt sleep 

and waking, 
I hear him say, *' Asander, oh, my 

son ! 
Shall I not see thee more ? " 

Asan, Oh, my dear father ! 

And dost thou love me thus, who have 

forgot thee 
These two long years ? Beloved, lonely 

life! 
Beloved failing eyes ! Lysimachus, 
I must go hence, and yet my honour 

binds me. 
O God, which shall I choose ? They 

do forbid me — 
The ruler of this place and that good 

woman 
Who is my wife, but holds their cursed 

State 
More than my love — to go. 

Lys. My prince, I come 

To find a way by which thou mayst go 

free 
From that which binds thee fast. 

This festival 
To the dead Lamachus will give the 

occasion 
To set thee free. If thou dost doubt to 

break 
Thy word, yet doth a stronger, straiter 

chain 
Bind thee — thy oath. Thou hast not 

forgot thy oath 
To Bosphorus ? 

Asan. Nay, I forget it not. 

But what is it thou wouklst of 

me ? 
Lys. Asander, 

The night which ends the festival shall 

see us 
Masters of Cherson. 



Asa/i. Nay, but 'twere dishonour 
To set upon a friendly State from 

ambush — 
'Twere murder, and not battle. 

Zys. Art thou false 

To thy own land and to thy dying 

father ? 
Asan. That I am not ; but never 

could I bear 
To play the midnight thief, and 

massacre 
Without announcement of legitimate 

war 
Whom daily I have known. My wife 

I love 
With all the love of my soul. If she 

seem cold 
When any word is spoken which may 

touch 
The safety of the State, think you she 

would love 
The husband who destroyed it ? All 

my heart 
Is in her keeping. 

Lys. It is well indeed 

To have such faith. Doubtless the 

Lady Gycia 
Returns this pure affection. 

Asajt. I would doubt 

The saints in heaven sooner than her 

truth, 
Which if I doubted, then the skies 

might fall, 
The bounds of right and w^-ong might 

be removed, 
The perjurer show truthful, and the 

wanton 
Chaste as the virgin, and the cold, pure 

saint 
More foolish than the prodigal who eats 
The husks of sense — it were all one to 

me ; 
I could not trust in virtue. 



4o6 



GYCIA. 



ACT III. 



Lys. Thou art changed 

Since when thy ship set sail from 

Bosphorus ; 
Thou didst not always think with such 

fond thought 
As now thou dost. Say, didst thou 

find thy bride 
Heart-whole as thou didst wish ? Had 

she no lover 
Ere yet thou earnest ? 

Asau. Nay, nay ; I found my wife 
Virgin in heart and soul. 

Lys. My Lord Asander, 

Art thou too credulous here ? What if 

I saw her 
On that same spot, not half an hour 

In tears, and kneeling at her feet a 

gallant 
Noble and comely as a morn in June, 
Who bade her break, with passionate 

words of love, 
Her hateful marriage vows, and make 

him blest 
Who must for ever love ? 

Asan. Thou sawest my wife 

Gycia, my pearl of women, my life, my 

treasure ? 
Nay, nay, 'tis some sick dream ! Thou 

art mistaken. 
Who knelt to her ? 

Lys. She called him Theodorus. 

Asan. Irene's brother ! Who was 
it who said 
He loved her without hope ? Lysi- 

machus, 
What is it that thou sawest ? Come, 

'tis a jest ! 
Kneeling to Gycia, praying her to 

fly ! 
Nay, nay, what folly is this ? [Laughs. 
Lys. My lord, I swear 

It is no jest indeed, but solemn earnest. 



I saw him kneel to her ; I heard the 

passion 
Burn through his voice. ■ 

Asajt. And she ? What did my 
lady ? 
She did repulse him sternly ? 

Lys. Nay, indeed, 

She wept ; was greatly moved, and 

whispered to him, 
" I am a wife." 
Asan. Peace, peace ! I will not 
hear 
Another word. How little do they 

know thee. 
My white, pure dove ! My Lord 

Lysimachus, 
Some glamour has misled thee. 

Lys. Well, my lord, 

I should rejoice to think it, but I cannot 
Deny my eyes and ears. Is not this 

noble 
The brother of the lady who was once 
At Bosphorus at Court, and now attends 
The Lady Gycia ? 

Asan. Ay, indeed he is. 

Lys. Well, she is near at hand ; if 
thy belief 
Inclines not to my tale — which yet is 

true — 
Couldst thou not ask of her if ere your 

marriage 
Her brother was enamoured of your 

wife, 
And she of him ? 

Asan. That might I do indeed. 

But, sooth to say, I would not speak 

again 
With her you name ; and it may be 

indeed, 
I know her well, the Lady Gycia, 
Who is angered with her for what cause 

I know not, 
Might well resent the converse. 



GYCIA. 



407 



Lys. Prince Asander, 

There is no man so blind as he who 

closes 
His eyes to the light and will not have 

it shine, 
As thou dost now. 

Asaji. Then will I see this lady, 

Though knowing it is vain. 

[Exii Asander. 

Lys. I do not know 

What he will hear, but this at least I 

know : 
That woman loves him, and will lie to 

sow 
Dissension 'twixt these lovers — which 

accomplished. 
The rest is easy, and I hold this Cher- 
son 
To make or mar at will. Ha ! a good 

thought. 
I will send a message to the Lady 

Gycia 
Which shall ensure't. If she mislikes 

her friend, 
It is odds of ten to one some jealous 

humour 
Has caused it, or may grow of it. 

[ Writes. 

' ' Dear lady, 

Thou art wronged ; the Prince Asander 

presently 
Is with Irene alone. Seek them, and 

wring 
Confession of their fault." 

[Summons a Messenger. 

Ho there ! convey 

These to the Lady Gycia, but stay 

not 
To tell her whence they come. 

Mess, I go, my lord. 



SCENE IV.— Irene's prison. 

Irene ; afte-nvards Asander and 
Gycia. 

Ire. To think that once I loved 

that haughty woman ! 
Ah, that was long ago, before love came 
To tear our lives asunder. Though her 

power 
Can pen me here a prisoner, yet I know 
That I have pierced her heart. Oh, it 

is sweet 
To be revenged, and know that ven- 
geance brings 
Victory in its train ! If I had power 
To make Asander jealous of this wonder, 
Then all were easy. But I know no 

means 
Whereby from this strait prison I might 

sow 
Suspicion of her who has never given 
A shadow of cause. 

Attendant. The Lord Asander 

comes. 

^;//c7- Asander. 

Asan. Lady, I grieve that thou art 
in this place, 
And fain would set thee free. Tell me 

what cause 
Has brought thee hither. 

I7'e. Ask me not, my lord ; 

I cannot tell thee. 

Asan. Nay, but know I must, 

To plead thy cause. 

Ire. 'Twas too great love of thee, 
The love which thou didst spurn, that 
brought me here. 
Asan. But how should that be so ? 
Ire. The Lady Gycia, 

Holding thee to thy promise that thou 
wouldst not 



4o8 



GYCIA, 



Go hence— no, not to close thy father's 

eyes — 
Took umbrage that I spoke with' scant 

respect 
Of such unreasoning and unnatural 

bond 
As that which she approves. 

Asan. Then am I grateful 

For thy good-will, and grieve that it 

should bring thee 
To pine a prisoner here, and will essay 
What reason can to free thee. 

Ire. Thanks, my lord, 

I would that thou wert free. I knew 

the King, 
And did receive much fatherly affection 
From that most reverend man. I grieve 

to hear 
That he lies sick, and would rejoice to 

tend him 
As if I were a daughter. 

Asan. Gentle lady, 

No other voice of sympathy than thine 
Have I yet heard in Cherson, and I 

thank thee 
For thy good-will. 

Ire. 'Tis always thine, my lord, 

And more, though I should end my 

wretched days 
In prison for thy sake. 

Asan. I thank thee, lady. 

And fain would ask of thee a greater 

kindness : 
I would that thou wouldst tell me of 
thy brother. 
Ire. My brother Theodoras ? What 

of him ? 
Asan. This only. Did he, ere I 
knew my wife, 
Bear towards her a great though inno- 
cent love ? 
Ire. A great though innocent love? 
Ay, a great love, 



For certain. Spoke she not of it to 
thee? 
Asan. No word ! 

Ire. Ah ! yet, maybe, 'twas inno- 
cent — 
Nay, I believe it, though she spoke not 

of it, 
And 'tis the wont of wives to laugh and 

boast 
Of innocent conquests. 

Asan. Nay, she spoke no word. 

Ire, And did no other of thy friends 
at Cherson 
Tell thee? Why, 'twas the talk of all 

the city 
How close they grew together, till thy 

coming 
And the necessities of Cherson turned 
Her eyes from him to thee. 

Asan. And does he still 

Bear love for her ? 

Ire. And does he still bear love ? 

Ay, passionate love. The heart which 

truly loves 
Puts not its love aside for ends of State, 
Or marriage bonds, or what the dullard 

law 
Suffers or does not' suffer, but grows 

stronger 
For that which seeks to thwart it. 

Asan. And did she 

My wife return this love ? 

Ire. Ay, so 'twas said. 

Ask me no more, I pray ! 

Enter Gycta unperceived. 

Asan. Nay, by the love 

Thou bearest to me, speak ! 

Gycia. My Lord Asander, 

What dost thou with this woman thus 
alone ? 
Asan. 'Twere best thou didst not 
ask. 



SCENE V. 



GYCIA. 



409 



Gycia. I have n. right ; 

I will be answered. First, thou didst 

deny 
Thou knewest aught of her ; then said 

her nature 
Was such I might not call her friend, 

or live 
With her within four walls ; and now, 

her fault — 
Which she herself proclaimed — penning 

her here 
In a close prison, thou my husband 

comest 
To comfort her, 'twould seem — to travel 

o'er 
Again the old foul paths and secretly 
To gloat on the old passion. 

Asan. Nay, I came 

Not for this cause, but one which I will 

tell thee. 
I came to question of thy former love, 
Gycia, To question her of me ? 
Asan. To know the cause 

That made my wife, scarce one short 

hour ago, 
Within my home, when hardly I had 

left her, 
Receive alone a lover kneeling to her 
With words of passionate love, and 

whisper to him, 
" I am a wife." 

Gycia. Hast thou no shame, 

Asander, 
To speak such words to me before this 

woman, 
Who knows her brother's life ? 

Ire. Nay, prithee, madam, 

Appeal not to me thus ; I could say 

much 
On which I would keep silence. 

Gycia. Thou base woman, 

And thou poor dupe or most perfidious 

man. 



It were to honour ye to make defence 
Against a wanton and her paramour ; 
But thee, Asander, never will I take 
To my heart again, till thou hast put 

from thee 
This lying accusation, and dost ask 
Pardon that thou hast dared with this 

base wretch 
To impugn my honour. 

Asan. Thou hast said no word 

Of answer to my charge ; thy bold 

defiance 
Argues thy guilt. 

Gycia. My guilt ? And canst 

thou dare 
To say this thing to me ? I will speak 

no word ; 
Denial were disgrace. Sir, I will have 

you 
Leave this place quickly. 

Asan. Madam, I obey you. 

{Exit. 

Gycia. And I too go. {Exit. 

Ire. I hold these hapless fools 

In the hollow of my hand. 



SCENE v.— Outside the palace. 

Lysimachus and three Courtiers ; 
afteiiuards Asander. 

Lys. My lords, what have you to 
report ? Have the men arrived ? 

\st Court. For a week past they 
have been arriving at the rate of fifty a 
day. The ships anchor in due course. 
At dead of night, when everything is 
still, the merchandise is landed and 
conveyed well-disguised to the disused 
granaries adjoining Lamachus' palace, 
with good store of arms and provisions. 

ind Court. Yes, and by the day of 
the festival we shall have more than 



4IO 



GYCIA, 



ACT III. 



five hundred well-armed men within 
the walls, who, while the people are 
feasting, will bear down all opposing 
forces and open the gates to the larger 
body, who will lie concealed in the 
grain-ships in the harboiu". 

Lys. Does no one suspect, think 
you, as yet ? 

1st Cota't. Not a soul. The stores 
are landed at midnight, and the place 
is haunted and full of noises. 

'^rd Court. Does the Prince know ? 

Lys. Not yet, not a word. I can't 

trust him with his blind love for his wife. 

yd Court. What if he will not be 

of us? 

Lys. Then he shall be put under 
hatches at once for Bosphorus, and may 
take his wife with him if he pleases. 

1st Court. But will he pardon the 
deed ? 

Lys. The lad is a good lad enough, 
but weak as water. The world always 
pardons successful enterprises. Besides, 
I am in great hopes that he has so 
quarrelled with the ruler of Cherson, 
and may be, moreover, so out of con- 
ceit with his wife, that we can do as 
we will with him. 

2nd Court. But be prudent, my 
Lord Lysimachus, I beg, for we know 
not how far he is with us, and if he is 
against us now, it may take more than 
we know to keep our heads on our 
shoulders. 

Lys. My lords, you shall not lose a 
drop of your blood. But here is my 
Lord Asandcr. He looks cast down 
enough, in all conscience. 

Enter AsANDER. 

Well, Prince, hast thou seen the lady ? 
Asan. Speak not to me of her, I pray. 



I must leave this accursed place at once 
and for ever, and must take my wife 
with me. Once in Bosphorus, I may 
know again the happiness which is 
denied me here. I will not stay here 
a day. Is there any ship from Bos- 
phorus in harbour ? Get me away to- 
night secretly, and the Lady Gycia 
with me. 

Lys. My lord, there are many ships 
here from Bosphorus, but none empty 
or which can be spared nov/ ; but it 
wants but two days to the festival, and 
if thou wilt tarry until then, it may be 
we can so arrange that either thou mayst 
set sail for Bosphorus at will or bring 
Bosphorus hither at will. 

Asan. What do these words mean ? 
You speak in riddles. I care not what 
becomes of me, but remember my 
honour, Lysimachus, my honour ! If 
any scheme against the State of Cherson 
is in your mind, I will have none of it. 
I want nothing of these people, only to 
be allowed to turn my back upon them 
and their intrigues for ever, and to 
carry the wife whom I love far away 
from the air of chicane and base deceit 
which makes this Cherson a hell. 
Lys. My Lord Asander, thou hast 
not forgot 
Thy oath which thou didst swear ere 

first you left 
Our Bosphorus, that, come what fate 

should come. 
Thou wouldst not forget her. Now, as 

Fate would have it, 
These gentlemen and I, hearing report 
Of the grand festival which now 

approaches. 
Have ta'en such measures as may make 

our city 
Mistress of this her rival. Day by day 



SCENE V. 



GYCIA. 



411 



Ships laden deep with merchandise 

cast anchor 
By Lamachus's palace, and unload 
At dead of night their tale of armed 

men, 
And by to-morrow night, which is the 

eve 
Of the feast, five hundred men-at-arms 

or more 
In a dark hall, long empty and disused, 
These fools deem haunted, where the 

sounds they make 
Seem not of earth, and none draw near 

to hear, 
Will lie concealed. These, when the 

festival 
Has spent itself, and the drowsed 

citizens, 
Heavy with meat and wine, are fast 

asleep. 
Will issue forth at midnight and will 

seize 
The guardians of the gates, and throw 

them open 
To an o'erwhelming force which fills 

the ships 
Which lie within the harbour. For the 

rest, 
Cherson is ours, thou free to go or stay, 
King if thou wilt ; but this, my lord, 

know well — 
Even if thou hast no reverence for thy 

oath. 
No power on earth can free thee from 

thy bonds 
Or speed thee hence, if still this cursed 

State 
Keeps its free power. Therefore, look 
well to it. 
Asan. I cannot do this thing. I 
am no thief 
Or midnight murderer, but a prince and 
soldier. 



Place me in open battle, and I care 

not 
For bloodshed ; but this murderous 

intrigue, 
I will have none o't. 

Lys. Nay, my lord, in sooth. 

Why think of bloodshed ? If our 

scheme go right 
(And nought can mar it now), what 

need of blood ? 
These smooth knaves, though they 

fight behind their walls 
With cunning enginery, yet when they 

see 
Our army in their streets, will straight 

grow prudent 
And hug discretion. But, indeed, my 

lord, 
We have gone too far to pause, and if 

thou like not 
Our scheme, which makes for thee and 

for our State, 
We cannot risk that thou denounce our 

plan. 
And therefore, if thou wilt not join with 

us. 
The safety of ourselves and of the 

State 
Holds thee a prisoner pent in close 

duress 
Till victory is ours, and thou mayst 

take 
The fruit of others' daring, while thy 

wife 
Deserts her doubting and dishonoured 

lord 
For one who dares to act and play his 

part 
As a man should. 

Asan. {after hesitation). I do not 
hold with you. 
That a man's oath can bind him to his 
God 






412 



GYCIA. 



To do what else were wrong. Yet, 

since you swear 
Your purpose is not bloodshed, and my 

will 
Is impotent to stay your choice, and 

chiefly 
Because I am cast down and sick at 

heart, 
And without any trust in God or man, 
I do consent to your conspiracy. 
Loving it not. 

Lys. There spoke my lord the 

Prince. 
We will succeed or die. 

Asaji. I would sooner die. 



ACT IV. 

SCENE I.— Cherson. 

TRISON. 



Irene's 



Irene ; then the Gaoler's Child ; after- 
wards Gycia. 
Ire. Ah me ! The heaviness of 

prisoned days ! 
Heigho ! 'Tis weary work in prison 

here. 
What though I know no loss but 

liberty. 
Have everything at will— food, service, 

all 
That I should have, being free — yet 

doth constraint 
Poison life at its spring ; and if I 

thought 
This woman's jealous humour would 

endure, 
I would sooner be a hireling set to tend 
The kine upon the plains, in heat or 

cold, 
Chilled through by the sharp east, 

scorched by the sun. 



So only I might wander as I would 
At my own will, than weary to be free 
From this luxurious cell. Hark ! 

\The tramp of armed men is heard. 

What was that sound ? 

I could swear I heard the measured 

tramp of men 
And ring of mail, yet is it but illusion. 
Last night I thought I heard it as I lay 
Awake at dead of night. Mere fantasy 
Born of long solitude, for here there are 
No soldiers nor mailed feet. 

\_Again heard. 
Hark ! once again. 
Nay, I must curb these fancies. 

Enter Child. 



Gentle lady, 
little one. Come 



Child. 

Ire. Speak, 

hither. 
Child. Gentle lady, 

My father, who is Warder of this 

tower, 
Bade me come hither and ask thee if 

thou wouldst 
That I should hold thy distaff, or might 

render 
Some other service. 

l7-e. Ay, child ; a good thought. 

Bring me my spinning-wheel. 

[Child brings it. 
Ire. {spinning). The light is fading 
fast, but I would choose 
This twilight, if thou wilt not be afraid 
Of the darkness, little one. 

Child. Nay, that I am not, 

With one so good as thou. 

Ire. Nay, child, it may be 

I am not all thou think'st me. 

Child. But, dear lady. 

Are not all noble ladies good ? 

Ire. Not all, 

Nor many, maybe. 



SCENE I. 



GYCIA. 



413 



Child. To be sure they are not, 

Else were they not imprisoned. 

Ii-e. Little one, 

Not all who pine in prison are not good, 
Nor innocent who go free. 

Child. The Lady Gycia, 

Is she not good ? 

Ire. It may be that she is. 

'Tis a vile world, my child. 

Child. Nay, I am sure 

The Lady Gycia is as white and pure 
As are the angels. When my mother 

died 
She did commend me to her, and she 

promised 
To keep me always. 
Ire. But she sent me here. 

Child. Ah ! lady, then I fear thou 
art not good. 
I am sorry for thee. 

Ire. So, my child, am I. 

[The tramp of armed feet is heai'd again. 
Child. Ah ! lady, what is that ? I 
am afraid. 
Didst hear the ghostly feet ? 

Ire. What heardst thou, child ? 

Child. A tramp of armed men and 

ring of mail. 
Ire. Then, 'tis no fancy of my weary 
brain. 
If it comes again I must inquire into it. 
'Tis passing strange. Be not afraid, 

my child. 
'Twas but the wind which echoed 

through the void 
Of the vast storehouses below us. 
Come, \Spinning. 

Let us to spinning. Twirl and twirl 

and twirl ; 
'Tis a strange task. 

Child. Lady, I love it dearly. 

My mother span, and I would sit by her 
The livelong day. 



Ire. Didst ever hear the tale 

Of the Fates and how they spin ? 

Child. I do not think so. 

Wilt tell me ? 

Ire. There were three weird sisters 
once, 
Clotho and Lachesis and Atropos, 
Who spun the web of fate for each new 

Hfe, 
Sometimes, as I do now, a brighter 

thread 
Woven with the dark, and sometimes 

black as night. 
Until at last came Atropos and cut 
The fine-worn life-thread thus. 
\Ciits the thread ; the head of the spindle 
rolls aioay. 
Child. And hast thou cut 

Some life-thread now? ^.-T.. 

Ire. My child, I am no Fate, 

And yet I know not ', but the spindle's 

head 
Rolled hence to yonder corner. Let us 

seek it. 
Hast found it ? 

Child. Nay, there is so little light, 
I think that it has fallen in the crevice 
Beneath yon panel. 

Ire. Stoop and seek it, child. 

Perchance the panel slides, and then, 

it may be. 
We shall let in the light. 
{Drains back the panel and discovers a 
bright light, fles of armed men, 
<7//(/ ASANDER ifi the midst. 
Child. Ay, there it is ; 

We have it, we have found it. 

\S tiding panel bach again. 

Ire. What have we found ? 

What have we found ? Yes, little one, 

'tis found ! 
Run away now — I fain would be 
alone — 



414 



GVC/A. 



ACT IV. 



And come back presently. 

[/Czsses Child, zv/io goes. 

These were the sounds 

I heard and thought were fancy's. All 

is clear 
As is the blaze of noon. The Prince 

Asander 
Is traitor to the State, and will o'er- 

whelm it 
When all the citizens are sunk in sleep 
After to-morrow's feast. Well, what 

care I ? 
He is not for me, whether we call him 

King 
Or Archon ; and for these good men of 

Cherson, 
What is their fate to me? If he 

succeed, 
As now he must, since no one knows 

the secret, 
'Twill only be a change of name— no 

more. 
The King and Queen will hold a 

statelier Court 
And live contented when the thing is 

done. 
And that is all. For who will call it 

treason 
\Vhen victory crowns the plot? But 

stay ! a gleam 
Of new-born hope. What, what if it 

should fail 
As I could make it fail ? What if this 

woman, 
Full of fantastic reverence for the dead, 
And nourished on her cold republican 

dream. 
Should learn the treason ere 'twas done 

and mar it ? 
Would not Asander hate her for the 

failure ? 
And she him for the plot ? I know her 

well, 



I know her love for him, but well I 

know 
She is so proud of her Athenian blood 
And of this old republic, she would 

banish 
Her love for less than this. Once 

separated. 
The Prince safe over seas in Bosphorus, 
His former love turned to injurious 

pride, 
I might prevail ! I would ! 

Re-enter Child. 

Nay, little one, 
We will spin no more to-day. I prithee 

And seek the Lady Gycia. Say to her, 
By all the memory of our former love 
I pray that she will come to me at 

once. 
Lose not a moment. \^Exit Child. 

Hark ! the tramp again ; 
Again the ring of mail. I wonder 

much 
If she shall hear it first, or first the eye 
Shall slay her love within her. 

Enter QxYQix, 

Gycia. Thou dost ask 

My presence ; wherefore is it ? 

Ire. Gycia, 

Thou dost not love me, yet would I 

requite 
Thy wrong with kindness. That thy 

love was false 
To thee, thou knowest, but it may be 

still 
There is a deeper falsehood than to 

thee, 
And thou shalt know it. Dost thou 

hear that sound ? 

[ The tramp of men again hearcL 
What means it, think you? 



SCENE I. 



GYC/A. 



415 



Gycia. Nay, I cannot tell. 

'Tis like the tramp of armed men. 

Ire. It is ; 

And who are they ? 

Gycia. Young citizens of Cherson, 
Maybe, rehearsing for to-morrow's 

pageant 

And the procession. \Going. 

Ire. Stay, thou stubborn woman. 

Canst bear to see, though the sight 

blight thy life ? 

Gycia. I know not what thou 

wouldst, but I can bear it. 
Ire. Though it prove thy love a 

traitor ? 
Gycia. That it will not ! 

Ire. Then, make no sound, but see 
what I will show thee. 
Look now ! Behold thy love ! 

\Draivs back panel, and discovers 

AsANDER zviih the soldiers of 

Bosphorus standing in line. 

Asander's voice heard. 

Asan. At stroke of midnight 

To-morrow night be ready. 

Soldiers. Ay, my lord. 

[Gycia tottering back. Irene slides 
back the panel, and Gycia sets 
her back against it, half faint- 
ing ; Irene regardiiig her zvith 
triumph. 
Gycia. Was that my husband ? and 
those men around him 
Soldiers of Bosphorus, to whom he 

gave 
Some swift command ? What means 

it all, ye saints ? 
What means it ? This the husband of 

my love, 
Upon whose breast I have lain night 

by night 
For two sweet years — my husband 
whom my father 



Loved as a son, whose every thought I 

knew, 
Or deemed I did, lurking in ambush 

here 
Upon the eve of our great festival. 
Scheming some bloody treachery to take 
Our Cherson in the toils ? Oh, 'tis 

too much ; 
I cannot trust my senses ! 'Twas a 

dream ! 
Ire. No dream, but dreadful truth ! 
Gycia. Thou cruel woman, 

How have I harmed thee, thou shouldst 

hate me thus ? 
But 'twas no dream. Why was it else 

that he. 
But for some hateful treachery, devised 
This festival ? Why was it that he grew 
So anxious to go hence and take me 

with him. 
But that guilt made him coward, and 

he feared 
To see his work ? Oh, love for ever 

lost. 
And with it faith gone out ! what is't 

remains 
But duty, though the path be rough 

and trod 
By bruised and bleeding feet? Oh, 

what is it 
Is left for me in life but death alone. 
Which ends it ? 

Ire. Gycia, duty bids thee banish 
Thy love to his own State, and then 

disclose 
The plot thou hast discovered. It may 

be 
That thou mayst join him yet, and yet 

grow happy. 
Gycia. Never ! For duty treads 

another path 
Than that thou knovvest. I am my 

father's dauglUer. 



4*6 



GYCIA. 



It is not mine to pardon or condemn ; 

That is the State's alone. 'Tis for the 

State 
To banish, not for me, and therefore 

surely 
I must denounce these traitors to the 

Senate, 
And leave the judgment theirs. 

Ire. {kneeling). Nay, nay, I pray 
thee, 
Do not this thing ! Thou dost not know- 
how cruel 
Is State-craft, or what cold and stony 

hearts 
Freeze in their politic breasts. 

Cycia. Thou kneel'st to me 

To spare my husband ! Think'st thou 

I love him less 
Than thou dost, wanton ? 

Ire. Gycia, they will kill him. 

Get him away to-night to Bosphorus, 
Thou dost not know these men ! 

Gycia. I know them not ? 

I who have lived in Cherson all my 

days, 
And trust the State ? Nay, I wall get 

me hence. 
And will denounce this treason to the 

Senate. 
There lies my duty clear, and I will 

do it ; 
I fear not for the rest. The State is 

clement 
To vanquished foes, and doubtless will 

find means 
To send them hence in safety. For 

myself 
I know not what may come — a broken 

heart, 
Maybe, and death to mend it. But 

for thee, 
Thou shameless wanton, if thou breathe 
a sound ' 



Or make a sign to them, thou diest to- 
night 

With torture. 

Jre. Spare him ! Do not this 
thing, Gycia ! [Exil Gycia. 

O God, she is gone ! he is lost i and I 
undone ! {S-woons. 



Scene II. — Room in Lamachus's 

PALACE. 

Lysimachus, Megacles, Courtiers ', 
afterioards Asander. 

Lys, Well, good Megacles, I hope: 
you are prepared to cany out your 
function. It will be a busy and anxious 
day to-morrow, no doubt, and most of 
us will be glad when midnight strikes. 

Meg. My Lord Lysimachus, I hope 
so. I have not closed an eye for the 
last two nights. As to the Procession, 
I flatter myself that no better-arranged 
pomp has ever defiled before Ccesar's 
Palace. It will be long, it will be 
splendid, it will be properly marshalled. 
There is no other man in the Empire 
who knows the distinctions of rank or 
the mysteries of marshalling better than 
I do. Look at the books I have studied. 
There is the treatise of the Learned and 
Respectable Symmachus on Processions. 
That is one. There is the late divine 
Emperor Theodosius on Dignities and 
Titles of Honour. That is two. There 
is our Learned and Illustrious Cham- 
berlain Procopius's treatise on the 
office and duties of a Count of the 
Palace. That, as no doubt you know, 
is in six large volumes. That is three, 
or, nay, eight volumes. Oh, my poor 
head ! And I have said nothing of the 
authorities on Costume— a library, I 



SCENE II. 



GYCIA. 



417 



assure you, in themselves. Yes, it has 
been an anxious time, but a very happy 
one. I wish our yeung friends here 
would devote a little more time to such 
serious topics, and less to such frivolities 
as fighting and making love. The 
latter is a fine art, no doubt, and, when 
done according to rule, is well enough ; 
but as for fighting, getting oneself 
grimed with dust and sweat, and very 
likely some vulgar churl's common 
blood to boot — pah ! it is intolerable 
to think of it. 

\st Couj'L Ah ! good Megacles, I 
am afraid that the world cannot spare 
its soldiers yet for many years to come. 
So long as there is evil in the world, 
and lust of power and savagery and 
barbarism, so long, depend upon it, 
there is room and need for the soldier. 
Meg. Certainly, my lord, certainly ; 
and besides, they are very highly 
decorative too. Nothing looks better 
to my mind at a banquet than bright 
gay faces and lithe young figures set in 
a shining framework of mail. By the 
way, my Lord Lysimachus, it was kind 
of you to provide our procession with a 
strong detachment of fine young soldiers 
from Bosphorus. I have secured a 
prominent place for them, and the 
effect will be perfect. I trust the Lady 
Melissa will like it. 

Lys. My lord, you are mistaken ; 
there are no soldiers from Bosphorus 
here. 

3Ieg. But I was with the Prince last 
night, and saw them. 

Lys. I tell you you are mistaken. 
There are none here. Do you under- 
stand me ? There are none here. 

2?id Cottrt. Nay, indeed, my Lord 
Megacles. We were trying, with a 



view to the pageant, how a number of 
young men of Cherson would look in 
the array of Bosphorus ; but we gave 
it up, since we feared that they would 
bear them so clumsily that they would 
mar the whole effect. 

Meg. Ah, that explains it ; quite right, 
quite right. Well, I see I was mistaken. 
But I wish I could have had soldiers 
from Bosphorus. They are the one 
thing wanting to make to-morrow a per- 
fect success, as the Lady Melissa said. 
Lys. They are indeed, as you say. 
But, my Lord Megacles, pray do not 
whisper abroad what you have said 
here ; these people are so jealous. 
They would grow sullen, and spoil the 
pageant altogether. 

Meg. Ah, my lord, you have a good 
head. I will not breathe a word of it 
till the day is done. 

Lys. Thanks, my lord, and as I 
know you will be weary with the long 
day's work and your great anxieties, 
I am going to lay a little friendly com- 
pulsion upon you. You must leave the 
banquet to-morrow and go to rest by 
eleven o'clock at latest. 

Meg. Well, my lord, I am not so 
young as I was, and if I have your per- 
mission to leave before all is over, well 
and good. No one knows what an 
anxious day is before me, and I have no 
doubt I shall have earned my night's 
rest by then. But I have much yet to 
do, so with your permission I will wish 
you good night. 

\Exit Megacles, bowing low to each 

with exaggerated gestures. 
Lys. Poor soul, poor soul ! If any 
fight comes, it would be as cruel to let 
him take his part with men as it would 
be if he were a woman or a child. 



4i8 



GYCIA. 



ACT IV 



En^er Asander. 

Welcome, my Lord Asander. Hast 
thou seen our men, and are they ready 
for to-morrow ? 

Asan. I have just come from them, 

and they are ready, 
But I am not. I pray you, let this 

be; 
Send back these men to-night. I am 

oppressed 
By such o'ermastering presages of ill 
As baffle all resolve. 

Lys. My Lord Asander, 

It is too late. Wouldst thou, then, 

break thy oath ? 
Wouldst thou live here a prisoner, nor 

behold 
Thy father, though he die? Wouldst 

thou thy country 
Should spurn thee as the traitor whose 

malignance 
Blighted her hard-won gains ? It is too 

late! 
It is too late ! 

Asan. I am grown infirm of will 

As any dotard. I will go on now 
So that thou dost no murder. 
- Lys. Why was it 

We came in such o'erwhelming force, 

but that 
We sought to shed no blood ? 

Asa7i. I will be ready, 

Though with a heavy heart. To-morrow 

night 
At stroke of twelve, when all the feast 

is done, 
And all asleep, we issue from the 

palace. 
Seize the guards at their posts, and open 

wide 
The gates to the strong force whicli 

from the ships 



At the same hour shall land. The 

citizens, 
Heavy with wine, will wake to find 

their city 
Our own beyond recall. 

Lys. Ay, that's the scheme, 

And nought can mar it now. Good 

night, my lord. 
Sleep well ; there is much to do. 

Asan. Good night, my lords ! 

\^Exii Asander. 

Lys. No bloodshed ! Why, what 

fools love makes of men ! 
I have seen this very lad dash through 

the ranks 
Of hostile spearmen, cut and hack and 

thrust 
As in sheer sport. There will be blood 

shed, surely. 
Unless these dogs have lost their knack 

of war 
As he has ; but we have them unpre- 
pared, 
And shall prevail, and thou shalt be 

avenged, 
My father slain, and thou, my murdered 

brother, 
Shalt be avenged ! My lords, you 

know what work 
Is given each to do. Be not too 

chary 
Of your men's swords ; let them strike 

sudden terror. 
Slay all who do resist, or if they do 

not. 
Yet slay them still, JVIy lords, give you 

good night. 
To-morrow at midnight, at the stroke 

of twelve — 
At the stroke of twelve ! 

YExennt omncs. 



SCENE III. 



GYCIA. 



419 





isi Sen. Zetho, 'tis true. Last 


SCENE III.— The council chamber 


night, a citizen 


OF THE Senate of Cherson. 


Sware he heard clang of arms and ring 




of mail 


Zetho and Senators ; aficrivards 


At midnight by the house of Lamachus ! 


Gycia. 


27id Sen. My freedman, coming 


Zct. Most worthy brethren, Senators 


home at grey of dawn. 


of Cherson, 


Saw a strange ship unload her mer- 


In great perplexity of mind and will 


chandise. 


I summon ye to-night. The Lady 


And one bale chanced to fall, and from 


Gycia, 


it came 


Our Lamachus's daughter, sends re- 


Groanings and drops of blood ! 


quest. 


"^rd Sen. Two nights ago, 


Urgent as 'twere of instant life and 


The ways being white with snow, I on 


death, 


the quay 


That I should call ye here. What care 


Saw the thick-planted marks of armed 


can move 


feet ; 


Such anxious thought in her, on this the 


But, rising with the dawn, I found the 


eve 


place 


Of the high festival herself has founded, 


Swept clean with care ! 


I know not, but 'twould seem the very 


Zet. Brethren, I know not what 


air 


These things portend. 


Is full of floating rumours, vague alarms. 


Enter Gycia. 


Formless suspicions which elude the 


grasp. 


But see, she comes ! Good daughter, 


Unspoken presages of coming ill 


Why is thy cheek so pale ? 


Which take no shape. For whence 


Gycia. This is the wont 


should danger come ? 


Of women. Grief drives every drop of 


We are at peace with all. Our former 


blood 


foe 


Back to the breaking heart, which love 


Is now our dearest friend ; the Prince 


calls forth 


Asander, 


To mantle on the cheek. Sirs, I have 


Though of a hasty spirit and high 


come 


temper, 


On such an errand as might drive a 


Dwells in such close, concordant har- 


woman 


mony 


Stronger than I to madness ; I have 


With his loved wife that he is wholly 


come 


ours; 


To tell you such a tale as well might 


And yet though thus at peace, rumours 


fetter 


of war 


My tongue and leave me speechless. 


And darkling plots beset us. Is it not 


Pity me 


thus? 


If I do somewhat wander in my 


Have ye heard aught ? 


talk ! 



420 



GYC/A. 



ACT IV. 



Tis scarce an hour ago, that in my In our Hellenic story, there is none 

Who has done more than thou, who 



house, 

Drawing some secret panel in the wall, 
I saw the long hall filled with armed 

men 
Of Bosphorus, and at their head— O 

Heaven, 
I cannot say it !— at their head I saw 
My husband, my Asander, my own 
love, 
[Senators rise zvith strong emotion. 
"Who ordered them and bade them all 

stand ready 
To-morrow night at midnight. What 

means this ? 
WHiat else than that these traitorous 

bands shall slay 
Our Cherson's liberties, and give to 

murder 
Our unsuspecting people, whom the 

feast 
Leaves unprepared for war? I pray 

you, sirs. 
Lose not one moment. Call the citizens 
To arms while yet 'tis time ! Defeat 

this plot ! 
Do justice on these traitors ! Save the 

city. 
Though I am lost ! 

Zct. Daughter, thy loyal love 

To our dear city calls for grateful honour 
From us who rule. In thy young veins 

the blood 
Of patriot Lamachus flows to-day as 

strong 
As once it did in his ; nay, the warm 

tide 
Which stirred the lips of bold Demos- 
thenes 
And all that dauntless band who of old 

time 
Gave heart and life for Athens, still is 
thine 



hast placed love, 
Wedlock, and queenly rule, and all 

things dear 
To a tender woman's heart, below the 

State— 
A patriot before all. Is there no favour 
A State preserved may grant thee ? 

Gycia. Noble Zetho, 

I ask but this. I know my husband's 

heart. 
How true it was and loyal. He is 

led, 
I swear, by evil counsels to this crime : 
And maybe, though I seek not to ex- 
cuse him. 
It was the son's love for his dying sire. 
Whom he should see no more, that 

scheming men 
Have worked on to his ruin. Banish 

him 
To his own city, though it break my 

heart. 
But harm him not ; and for those 

wretched men 
Whose duty 'tis to obey, shed not their 

blood, 
But let the vengeance of our city fall 
Upon the guilty only. 

Zet. Brethren all, 

Ye hear what 'lis she asks, and though 

to grant it 
Is difficult indeed, yet her petition 
Comes from the saviour of the State. I 

think 
We well may grant her prayer. Though 

well I know 
How great the danger, yet do I believe 
It may be done. Is it so, worthy 
brethren ? 

[Senators 7iod assent. 
Daughter, thy prayer is granted. 



SCENE III. 



GVCIA. 



421 



Gycia. Sirs, I thank you ; 

I love you for your mercy. 

Zet. For the rest, 

I counsel that we do not rouse the city. 
'Twere of no use to-night to set our 

arms, 
Blunt with long peace and rusted with 

disuse, 
Against these banded levies. By to- 
morrow — 
And we are safe till then — we shall 

have time 
To league together such o'erwhelming 

force 
As may make bloodshed needless, vain 

their plot, 
And mercy possible. Meantime, dear 

lady. 
Breathe not a word of what thine eyes 

have seen, 
But bear thyself as though thou hadst 

seen nothing. 
And had no care excepting to do honour 
To thy dead sire ; and when the weary 

day 
Tends to its close, school thou thy heavy 

heart, 
And wear what mask of joy thou canst, 

and sit 
Smiling beside thy lord at the high 

feast. 
Where all will meet. See that his cup 

is filled 
To the brim ; drink healths to Bosphorus 

and Cherson. 
Seem thou to drink thyself, having a 

goblet 
Of such a colour as makes water blush 
Rosy as wine. When all the strangers' 

eyes 
Grow heavy, then, some half an hour 

or more 
From midnight, rise as if to go to rest. 



Bid all good night, and thank them for 

their presence. 
Then, issuing from the banquel-hall, 

lock fast 
The great doors after thee, and bring 

the key 
To us, who here await thee. Thus 

shall thou 
Save this thy State, and him thy love, 

and all. 
For we will, ere the fateful midnight 

comes. 
Send such o'erwhelming forces to sur- 
round them 
That they must needs surrender, and 

ere dawn 
Shall be long leagues away. We will 

not shed 
A drop of blood, my daughter. 

Gycia. Noble Zetho, 

I thank you and these worthy senators. 
I knew you would be merciful. I thank 

you. 
And will obey in all things. 

\ExU Gycia. 

Bardanes, \st Sen. She is gone ; 

I durst not speak before her. Dost 

thou know. 
Good Zetho, how infirm for war our 

State 
After long peace has grown ? I doubt 

if all 
The men whom we might arm b?fore 

the hour 
Are matched in numbers with those 

murderous hordes ; 
While in experience of arms, in training, 
In everything that makes a soldier 

strong. 
We are no match for them. Our para- 
mount duty 
Is to the State alone, not to these 
pirates 



422 



GYCIA. 



Who lie in wait to slay us ; nor to one 
Who, woman-like, knows not our 

strength or weakness, 
Nor cares, if only she might wring a 

promise 
To spare her traitorous love. But we 

have arts 
Which these barbarians know not, 

quenchless fires 
Which in one moment can enwrap 

their stronghold 
In one red ring of ruin. My counsel 

is. 
That ere the hour of midnight comes 

we place 
Around the palace walls on every 

side 
Such store of fuel and oils and cunning 

drugs 
As at one sign may leap a wall of 

fire 
Impassable, and burn these hateful 

traitors 
Like hornets in their nest. 

ZetJio. Good brethren all. 

Is this your will? Is it faith? Is it 

honour, think you, 
To one who has given all, for us to 

break 
Our solemn plighted word ? 

I7id Sen. We will not break it ; 

We shed no drop of blood. The State 

demands it ; 
The safety of the State doth override 
All other claim. The safety of the 

State 
Is more than all ! 

AH the Senatoj's, with uplifted arms. 
Ay, Zetho, more than all ! 
Zetho. Then, be it as you will. See, 
therefore, to it ; 
Take measures that your will be done, 
not mine. 



Though I approve not, yet I may not 

set 
My will against the universal voice. 
Save us our Cherson. For the rest I 

care not. 
Only I grieve to break our solemn 

promise 
To Lamachus's child. Poor heart ! 

poor heart ! 



ACT V. 

SCENE I. — Outside Lamachus's 

PALACE. 

Megacles, Lysimachus, Courtiers, 
and Citizens of Cherson. 

Meg. Oh, this has been a happy 
day. All has gone admirably. Not a 
hitch in all the arrangements. Pre- 
cedence kept, rank observed, dresses 
all they should be. I do not, I really 
do not think, though I say it who 
should not, that the Imperial Chamber- 
lain at Constantinople could have con- 
ducted the matter better. 

\st Court. Nay, that he could not, 
good Megacles. Let us hope that 
what remains to do will go as smoothly. 

Meg. What remains? Doubtless you 
mean the banquet. That is all arranged 
long ago under three heads. First, the 
order of entering the hall ; second, the 
order of the seats ; third, the order of 
going forth. 

Lys. Doubtless the last will arrange 
itself. Remember, the only order of 
going to be observed is this, that thou 
get thyself gone, and all the guests from 
Cherson gone, fully half an hour before 
midnight. 

Meg. But, my lord, that is impos- 



GVC/A. 



423 



sible ; you ask too much. How long 
do you suppose it will take, at a mode- 
rate computation, to get one hundred 
men of ill-defined rank out of a room 
with a decent regard for Precedence. 
Why, I have seen it take an hour at 
the Palace, where everybody knew his 
place, and here I cannot undertake to 
do it under two. 

Lys. My friend, you will get it 
done ; you will waive ceremony. None 
but the Prince and ourselves must re- 
main within half an hour of midnight, 
and the hall must be cleared. 

Meg. Ah, well, my Lord Lysima- 
chus, the responsibility rests with you ; 
I will have none of it. It is as much 
as my reputation is worth. But if I do 
this, cannot you let me have a guard 
of honour of armed men to stand at 
intervals along the hall. I have been 
longing for them all day. 

£)'s. {angrily). Peace, fool ! I have 
told you before we have no soldiers 
here, 

[People of Cherson ovcrhca^'ing him. 

\st Cit. Didst hear that old man ? 

He believes there are soldiers here. 

Whence do they come ? and why did 

the other check him ? 

Meg. Well, my Lord Lysimachus, 
if not soldiers, men-at-arms, and these 
there certainly are, and highly deco- 
rative too. 

27id Cit. I hate these Bosphorians. 
What if the rumour should be true? 
Pass the word to the citizens that they 
sleep not to-night, but keep their arms 
ready for what may come. We are a 
match for them, whatever may be their 
design. To-morrow we will probe this 
matter to its depths. 

2nd Court. Depend upon it, there 



is no time to lose if we would forestall 
these fellows. But here comes the 
procession to the banqueting-hall. 

[Citizens going to baiiquct two and 

Izvo. 
Meg. {luith a goldzvand). This way, 
gentlemen ; this way, masters and 
mistresses ; this way. Respectables ! 
[Accompanies thejn to the end of the 
stage towards the banqueting-hall 
in the distance. Returns to esco 1 
another party. Musicians, etc. 

Enter Senators, two and tivo. 

Meg. {bowing profotmdly three times). 
Most Illustrious Senators ! this way, 
your Highnesses j this way. 

Enter Melissa and other Ladies. 

{To Melissa) Fairest and loveliest of 
your adorable sex, your slave prostrates 
himself before your stainless and beatific 
feet {botmng lotv and kissing his fingers). 
Illustrious Ladies, I pray you to 
advance. 

Lys. {with Courtiers standing apart). 
A good appetite, my friends. Enjoy 
yourselves while you may. 

Bard. We are quite ready, my Lord 
Lysimachus. Are you not {with a 
snee?') for the banquet ? 

Lys. In good time, in good time. 
If they only knew. [Aside. 

Bard, {overhearing). If yoit knew 
all, my friends. 

Meg. {returning). I pray you, most 
Illustrious Senators, to excuse the 
absence of a guard of honour. 

Bard. Nay, nay ; we are peaceful 
people, and have no armed men nearer 
than Bosphorus, as my Lord Lysima- 
chus knows. There are plenty in that 
favoured State, no doubt. 



424 



GYCIA. 



Lys. {confused). What does this 
insolence mean? I would the hour 
were come. 

Enter Zetho, wiih his relinue. 

Meg. Your Gravity, Your Sincerity, 
Your Sublime and Wonderful Magni- 
tude, Your Illustrious and Magnificent 
Highness, I prostrate myself before 
Your Altitude. Will You deign to 
walk this way? 

Zetho. My lord, I am no Cyesar, 
but a simple citizen of Cherson, called 
by my fellows to preside over the State. 
Use not to me these terms, I pray of 
you, but lead on quickly. 

Meg. I prostrate myself before Your 
Eminence. 

Ente7' A SANDER a7id Gycia. 
Meg, {returnifig). Noble Prince, 
will your Illustrious Consort and your- 
self deign to follow me ? 

Asan. Nay, good Megacles, will 
you and these gentlemen go first, I have 
a word to say to the Lady Gycia. We 
will be with you before the guests are 
seated. 

Meg. I obey, my Lord Asander, 
and will await you at the door. 
[Megacles, Lysimachus, and the 

rest, pass on. 
Asan. Gycia, though we have passed 
from amity 
And all our former love, yet would I 

pray you, 
By our sweet years of wedded happi- 
ness. 
Give ear to me a moment. It may 

be 
That some great shock may come to 

set our lives 
For evermore apart. 



Gycia. Ah yes, Asander— 

For evermore a,part ! 

Asan. And I would fain, 

If it must be, that thou shouldst know 

to-night 
That never any woman on the earth 
Held me one moment in the toils of 

love 
Except my wife. 

Gycia. What ! not Irene's self? 

Asan. Never, I swear by Heaven. 
She was a woman 
In whom a hopeless passion burnt the 

springs 
Of maiden modesty. I never gave her 
The solace of a smile. 

Gycia. Dost thou say this ? 

Is thy soul free from all offence with her, 
If thou camest now to judgment ? 

Asan. Ay, indeed, 

Free as a child's. 

Gycia. Oh, my own love ! my dear ! 
Ah no ! too late, too late ! 

\Enihraces him. 
Asan. I ask thee not 

Counter assurance, since I know thy 
truth. 
Gycia. Speakst thou of Theodoras ? 
He loved me 
Before I knew thee, but I loved no man 
Before I met Asander. W^hen he knelt 
That day, it was in pity for my grief. 
Thinking thee false, and all his buried 

love 
Burst into passionate words, which on 

the instant 
I as thy wife repelled. 

Asan. Oh, perfect woman ! 

[ They embrace. 

O God, it is too late ! Come, let us go ; 

The guests are waiting for us. What 

can Fate 
Devise to vanquish Love. {Exeunt. 



S(JENE I. 



GVC/A. 



425 



Enter two drunken Labourers of Cher- 
son, bearing faggots and straw, 

1st Lab. Well, friend, what kind of 
day has it been with you ? 

2nd Lab. Oh, a white day, a happy 
day ! Plenty of food, plenty of wine, 
raree shows without end, such pro- 
cessions as were never seen — the very 
model of a democracy ; nothing to pay, 
and everybody made happy at the ex- 
pense of the State. I have lived in 
Cherson, man and boy, for fifty years, 
and I never saw anything to compare 
with it. Here's good luck to Lamachus's 
memory, say I, and I should like to 
celebrate his lamented decease as often 
as his daughter likes. 

1st Lab. Didst know him, citizen ? 
2nd Lab. No, not I. He has been 
dead these two years. Time he was 
forgotten, I should think. They don't 
commemorate poor folk with all these 
fal-lals and follies. 

1st Lab. Well, citizen, there is one 
comfort — the great people don't enjoy 
themselves as we do. Did you ever 
see such a set of melancholy, frowning, 
anxious faces as the grandees carried 
with them to-day ? And as for the Prince 
and the Lady Gycia, I don't believe 
they spoke a word the livelong day, 
though they walked together. That is 
the way with these grandees. When 
you and I quarrel with our wives, it is 
hammer and tongs for five minutes, 
and then kiss and make friends. 

2nd Lab. And fancy being drilled by 
that- old fool from Bosphorus — "Most 
Illustrious, this is your proper place ; " 
*' Respectable sir, get you back there" 
{mimics Megacles), and so forth. 
1st Lab, Well, well, it is good to be 



content. But I warrant we are the 
only two unhappy creatures in Cher- 
son to-night, who have the ill fortune 
to be sober. And such wine too, and 
nothing to pay ! 

2nd Lab. Never mind, citizen, we 
shall be paid in meal or malt, I dare 
say, and we are bound to keep sober. 
By the way, it is a curiously contrived 
bonfire this. 

1st Lab. It will be the crowning 
triumph of the whole festival, the 
senator said. 

2nd Lab. But who ever heard of a 
bonfire on a lai-ge scale like this, so 
close to an old building? You know 
our orders : we are to place lines of 
faggots and straw close to the building 
on every side, well soaked with oil, 
and certain sealed vessels full of a 
secret compound in the midst of them. 
And just before midnight we are to run 
v/ith torches and set light to the whole 
bonfire, to amuse the noble guests at 
the banquet. 

[Irene at a toindow, overhearing. 
1st Lab. Ah ! do you not see ? It is 
a device of the Senate to startle our 
friends from Bosphorus. The faggots 
and straw blaze up fiercely round the 
wall ; then, when all is confusion, the 
substance in the sealed vessels escapes 
and at once puts out the fire, and the 
laugh is with us. Our friends from 
Bosphorus know what we can do in 
chemistry before now. 

2nd Lab. Faith, a right merry 
device ! Ha ! ha ! What a head thou 
hast, citizen ! Well, we must go on 
with our work. Lay the faggots evenly. 
Ire. {at the window above). Great 
God ! what is this ? 

We are doomed to die ! 



426 



GYCIA. 



Good friends, 

Know you my brother, the Lord Theo- 

dorus ? 
I have something urgent I would say to 

him. 
I will write it down, and you shall give 

it him 
When he comes forth from the banquet. 
\^Disappcars. 

\st Lab. Good my lady. Her 
brother, too, she calls him. I go bail 
it is her lover, and this is an assignation. 
Well, well, we poor men must not be 
too particular. 

2nd Lab, No, indeed ; but let us 
get on with our work, or we shall never 
finish in time. 

Lre. {reappearing). Here it is. Give 
it him, I pray, when he comes forth. 
'Tis a thing of life and death. 

\st Lab. So they all think, 

Poor love-sick fools ! 

Lre. See, here is gold for you— 

'Tis all I have ; but he will treble it, 
If you fail not. 

\st Lab. Lady, we shall be here. 

We must be here. Fear not, we shall 
not miss him. 



SCENE IL — The banquet hall. 

At a table, on a dais, Zetho, Asander, 
Gycia, rtwfl^ Senators ; Lysimachus, 
and Courtiers of Bosphorus. Mag- 
nates of Cherson at cross tables. 
Asander, Lysimachus, the Cour- 
tiers, and Senators seem flushed with 
zvijie. 

Zetho. I drink to him whose 
gracious memory 

We celebrate to-day. In all our Cher- 
son, 



Which boasts descent from the Athenian 

race, 
Who one time swayed the v/orld, there 

was no man. 
Nor ever had been, fired with deeper 

love 
Of this our city, or more heartfelt 

pride 
In our republican rule (Lysimachus 

sneers), which freeborn men 
Prize more than life. I do not seek to 

bind 
Those who, long nurtured under kingly 

rule, 
Give to the Man the love we bear the 

State ; 
But never shall the name of King be 

heard 
In this our Cherson. 

L-^ys. Archon, 'twere unwise 

To risk long prophecies. 

Bard. Be silent, sir. 

If you would not offend. 

Zetho, I bid you all 

Drink to the memory of Lamachus 
And weal to our Republic. 

Lys. Shall we drink 

Its memory, for it has not long to live, 
If it be still alive ? 

Bard. It v/ill outlive thee. 

Tho7i hast not long to live. 

Lys. Longer than thou. 

If swords be sharp. 

Zetho. I pray you, gentlemen. 

Bandy not angry words. 

Gycia. My Lord Asander, 

Thy cup is empty. Shall I fill it for 

thee? 
Thou lovedst Lamachus ? 

Asan. Ay, that I did ; 

And I love thee. But I have drunk 

enough. 
I must keep cool to-night. | 



GYCIA. 



427 



Gycia. Nay ; see, I fill 

My glass to drink with thee. 

Asan. Well, well,. I drink. 

But not to the Republic. 

Gycia, Ah ! my lord, 

There is a gulf still yawns 'twixt thee 

and me 
Which not the rapture of recovered love 
Can ever wholly bridge. To my dead 

father 
I drink, and the Republic ! 

Lys. Which is dead. 

Bm-d. Nay, sir, but living, and 
shall live when thou 
Liest rotting with thy schemes. 

Enter Megacles. 

Meg. My Lord Asander, 

A messenger from Bosphorus, just 

landed. 
Has bid me give thee this. 

{^Gives Asander letter. 
Asan. [reading) "My Lord, the 
King 
Is dead, asking for thee." Oh, 

wretched day ! 
Had I but gone to him, and left this 

place 
Of sorrow ere he died ! 

Gycia. My love, my dear ! 

Thou wilt go hence too late. I would 

indeed 
The law had let thee go. Sorrow like 

this 
Draws parted lives in one, and knits 

anew 
The rents which time has made. 

Lys. The King is dead ! 

Ay, then long live the King of Bos- 
phorus ! 
And more ere long ! 

Bard. Think you that he will live 
To wear his crown ? 



Zetho. Brethren, the hour is late. 

And draws to midnight, and 'tis time 
that all 

Should rest for whom rest is. {To 
Bardanes aside) We must con- 
sider 

What change of policy this weighty 
change 

Which makes Asander King may work 
in us. 
Bai-d. {aside). Nay, nay, no change ! 
He is a murderer still, 

And shall be punished were he thrice 
a king. 
Asan. Good night to all. And 
thou, good Megacles, 

Thou wert my father's servant, take thy 
rest. 

Go hence with these. 
Meg. I have no heart to marshal 

These dignitaries forth. My King is 
dead ; 

I am growing old and spent. 

Zetho. Daughter, remember 

Thy duty to the State. 

Gycia. I will, good Zetho. 

I am my father's daughter. Gentle 
Sirs 

And Ladies all, good night. 

{Exennt omnes except Asander and 
Gycia ; Lysimachus a«^ Cour- 
tiers by one door, then the Cher- 
sonites by another opposite. 
Asan. Dearest of women. 

How well this fair head will become a 
crown ! 

I know not how it is, but now this l)low 

Has fallen, it does not move me as I 
thought. 

I am as those who come in tottering 
age 

Even to life's verge, whom loss of 
friend or child 



428 



GVC/A. 



Touches not deeply, since the dead 

they love 
Precede them but a stage upon the road 
Which they shall tread to-morrow. 

Yet am I 
Young, and thou too, my Gycia ; we 

should walk 
The path of life together many years, 
But that some strange foreboding 

troubles me. 
For oh, my dear ! now that the sun of 

love 
Beams on our days again, my worth- 
less life 
Grows precious, and I tremble like a 

coward 
At dangers I despised. Tell me, my 

Gycia, 
Though I am true in love, wouldst thou 

forgive me 
If I were false or seemed false to thy 

State? 
Hast thou no word for me? May I 

not tell thee 
My secret, which so soon all men shall 

know, 
And ask thy pardon for it ? 

Gj'a'a. Say on, Asander. 

■Asa7i. Know, then, that soldiers 
sent from Bosphorus 
Have long time hid within our palace 

here — 
Long time before I knew, or I had 

nipt 
The treason in the bud ; and in an hour 
Or less from when we speak, they will 

go forth, 
When all the citizens are wrapt in sleep 
After the toilsome day, and seize the 

gates, 
And open to the army which lies hid 
On board the ships without. They will 
not shed 



The blood of any, since the o'erwhelm- 

ing force 
Will make resistance vain. I never 

liked 
The plot, I swear to thee ; but, all 

being done, 
And I a subject, dared not disavow 
That which was done without me. 

But I have forced 
A promise that no blood be spilt. 

Gycia. Asander, 

I have known it all, and have dis- 
covered all [Asander star is. 
Thy secret to the Senate ! But I knew 

not, 
Save by the faith that is the twin with 

love. 
That thou didst follow only in this 

plot, 
And wert unwilling ; and I do rejoice 
Thy hands are free from blood. But 

oh, my love, 
Break from these hateful men ! Thou 

art now a King, 
Thou canst command. Come, let us 

fly together ; 
There yet is time ! I tell thee that this 

plot 
Is doomed to ruin. Ere the morning 

dawns. 
All but the guilty leaders will be sent 
Prisoners to Bosphorus, and thou with 

them. 
I have gained this on my knees ; but 

for the guilty 
The State has punishments. 

Asatt. Gycia, thou wouldst not 

That I should break my faith ? 'Tis a 

King's part 
To keep faith, though he die. But 

when they have sei2;ed 
The city, then, using my kingly office, 
I will undo the deed, and make alliance 



SCENE IV. 



GYCIA. 



429 



With Cherson, and this done I will Without one drop of bloodshed. All 



depart, 
Taking my Queen with me. 

Gycia. Then must I go ; 

I cannot live without thee. 

Asaji. Now to rest, 

If not to sleep. 

Gycia. Good night, my love ; fare- 
well. 

Asan. Nay, not farewell, my love ! 

Gycia. Ah yes, farewell ! 

Farewell ! farewell for ever ! [Exetmt. 



SCENE III. — Outside the banquet 
HALL. Darkness. 

Gycia hurriedly descends the steps, 
closing the great doors oj the banquet 
hall softly. 

Gycia. I hear no sound within ; the 

lights are gone, 
And all the hall is dark. These doors 

alone 
Of all the many outlets of the palace 
Remain unlocked. There is not now a 

moment 
To lose ere midnight comes, and here I 

hold 
The safety of our Cherson. Oh, my 

love ! 
I could not tell thee all, nor recom- 
pense 
Thy faith in me, since duty held me 

fast— 
My duty 'which should also prove thy 

safety, 
For now the solemn promise of the 

State 
Is pledged to hold thee harmless, and 

defeat 
The shameful plot I knew was never 

thine, 



my path 
Shows clear as noonday, and I save our 

city 
And those who with thee err in inno- 
cence. 
Why do I hesitate ? Yet does some dark 
And dreadful presage of impending ill 
So haunt me that I know not how to 

face it. 
I dare not do it. I must stay with 

him. 
Or bring him forth with me. 

{Ascends the steps, throivs open the 

doors, and finds all darkness and 

silence. 

Asander ! husband ! 
It is thy wife who calls ! Come forth, 

Asander ! [Listens. 

Nay, there is no one there. I cannot 

stay; 
This is mere folly. I must keep my 

word ; 
There's not a moment's time, or all is 

lost. 
Which is the key ? 

{Closes the doors and lochs the?n ivith 

a clang. 

I must go forth alone 
To the Senate-chamber. I have saved 

our Cherson 
And my Asander ! 

{Totters dotvn the steps and exit 

hurriedly. 



SCENE IV.— The Senate-chamber. 

ZeTHO a7id Senators ; afterwards 
Gycia. 

Zetho. What is the hour ? 
Bardaties. It wants five minutes only 
To midnight. Think you she will come? 



430 



GYCIA. 



Zetho. I know her. 

She is the soul of honour, and would 

keep 
Her word if 'twere her death. 

Bard. But would she keep it 

If 'twere her lover's ? 

Zetho. She thinks not that it is, 

Nor should it Ije, indeed, were we but 

true 
As I believe her. 

Bard. True ! There is no truth 

In keeping faidi with murderers ; they 

must perish 
In the same net which they laid 

privily 
Against a faithful city. 

Enter Gycia, tottering in^ with the keys. 

Zetho. Hail, noble daughter ! Thou 

hast saved the State. 
I knew thou wouklst not fail us. 

Gycia. See, good Zetho, 

The proof that I have done my part to 

you. 
There are the master keys of all the 

doors 
Within the palace. When I closed the 

last, 
'A few brief minutes since, there was no 

sound 
Nor light in hall or chamber ; every 

court 
Was silent as the grave. 

Bard. Ay, as the grave 
It is, or will be soon. 

Gycia. What mean you, sir, 

I pray you? I am but a timid woman, 
Full of foreboding fears and dread of 

ill, 
And such a doubt doth overspread my 

soul, 
Hearing thy words, I think I shall go 

mad. 



Nay, Zetho, he is safe; I have your 

promise 
Thou wouldst not harm him. An o'er- 

whelming force. 
Thou saidst, should so surround them 

that resistance 
W^ere vain, and ere the dawn they 

should go hence 
W^ithout one drop of bloodshed. 

Zetho. Ay, my daughter, 

Such was the promise. 

Bard. And it will be kept. 

\BcU strikes midnight. 

Hark, 'tis the hour ! An overwhelming 

force 

\^A red glare rising higher and higher 

is seen through the ivindoivs of the 

Senate- chamber. Confused noises 

and shouts heard zvithout. 

Surrounds them, but no drop of blood 

is shed. 
All will go hence ere dawn. 

Gycia. Oh, cruel man, 

And most perfidious world ! Oh, my 

Asander ! 
To die thus and through me ! 

[A violent knocking is heard at the 
door. 

Enter TheoDORUS in great agitation, 
and Irene, who throtus herself on her 
knees, zveeping. GYCiAfalls szvooning 
in Zetho's arms. 

Zetho. Whence com'st thou, Theo- 
dorus ? 

TJieo. Straight, my lord, 

From Gycia's palace. 

Zetho. Say, what didst thou there ? 
And what of horror has befallen thee 
That makes thine eyes stare thus ? 

Thco. Most noble Zetho, 

When from the banquet scarce an hour 
ago 



SCENE IV. 



GYCIA. 



431 



I passed, came one who offered me a 

letter 
And bade me read. 'Twas from this 

woman here, 
My sister, and it told of some great 

peril 
By tire, which she, within the prison 

locked. 
Expected with the night. Wherefore I 

sped 
With one I trusted, and did set a 

ladder 
Against her casement, calling her by 

name. 
And bidding her descend. But no 

voice came, 
And all was dark and silent as the 

grave ; 



With strange armed men, who leapt 

into the flames 
And perished. Those who, maimed 

and burnt, escaped, 
Ere they could gain their feet, a little 

band 
Of citizens, who sprang from out the 

night. 
Slew as they lay. The Prince, who 

bore my sister 
Unhurt to ground, stood for a moment 

mute. 
Then, seeing all was lost, he with a 

groan 
Stabbed himself where we stood. I 

fear his hurt 
Is mortal, since in vain I tried to 

stautich 



And when I called again, the Prince | The rushing blood ; then bade them on 
Asander, I a litter 



From an adjacent casement looking, 

cried, 
' ' I had forgot thy sister. Take her 

hence ; 
She should go free ! " And then, at 

her own casement 

[Gycia revives mid listens. 
Appearing, he came forth, and in his 

arms 
A woman's senseless form. As they 

descended 
And now were in mid-air, there came 

the sound 
Of the bell striking midnight, and forth- 
with 
In a moment, like a serpent winged with 

fire. 
There rose from wall to wall a sheet of 

flame. 
Which in one instant mounted to the 

roof 
With forked red tongues. Then every 

casement teemed 



Carry him hither gently. Here he 
comes. 

Enter Citizens, bearing Asander on a 
litter, wounded. 

Gycia. Oh, my love, thou art hurt ! 
Canst thou forgive me ? 
I thought to save thee and the rest. I 

knew not, 
I did not know ! Oh, God ! 

Asan. I do believe thee. 

The fates have led our feet by luckless 

ways 
Which only lead to death. I loved but 

thee. 
I wished thy State no wrong, but I am 

dying. 
Farewell ! my love, farewell ! \Dies 1 
Gycia. Oh, my lost love ! V 

\Throivs herself on the body and hisses ^^ 
it passionately. \ 

Zetho. Poor souls ! Mysterious are • "v 
the ways of Heaven, <^. 



I 



432 



GYCIA. 



And these have suffered deeply in the 


Gycia. Farewell, good Zetho, 


fortune 


And all who were my friends. I am 


That bound their lives together. 


going hence ; 


Bard. That dead man 


I can no longer stay. There lies my 


Would have betrayed our State, and 


love. 


thou dost pity ! 


There flames my father's house. I go 


So perish all the enemies of Cher- 


far off, 


son ! 


A long, long journey. If you see me 


Gycia [rising). Nay, sir, be silent. 


not 


'Tis a coward's part 


In life again, I humbly pray the 


To vilify the dead. You, my Lord 


State 


Zetho, 


May, if it think me worthy — for in- 


I had your promise that you would hurt 


deed 


none 


I have given it all— bury me, when I 


Except the guilty only, and I thought 


die, 


That to your word I might entrust my 


Within the city, in a fair white 


life 


tomb, 


And one more dear than mifte j but now 


As did our Grecian forefathers of 


it seems 


old 


That in some coward and unreasoning 


For him who saved the State ; and, if 


panic 


it may be, 


This worthy Senator has moved his 


Lay my love by my side. 


colleagues — 


Zetho and Sens. Daughter, we swear 


Since cruelty is close akin to fear- 


That thou shalt have thy wish. 


To break your faith to me, and to con- 


Gycia. I thank you, sirs. 


fuse 


Then, I may go. Kiss me, good 


The 'innocent and guilty, those who 


Theodorus : 


' led 


I am no more a wife. I know thy 


And those who followed, in one dread- 


love. 


ful death ! 


And thank thee for it. For that wretch 


I pray you pardon me if, being a 


whose lie 


woman, ** 


Has wrecked our life and love, I bless 


Too rashly taking part in things of 


the gods 


State, 


That I am childless, lest my daughter 


I have known nought of State-craft or 


grew 


the wisdom 


As vile a thing as she ; and yet I know 


Which breaks a plighted word. 


not. 


Zeiho. Daughter, I would 


She loved him in some sort, poor wretch, 


Our promise had been kept, and I hr.d 


poor wretch ! 


kept it 


But now I must be going. 'Tis past 


But that the safety of the State to 


midnight ; 


some 


[Snatches a dagger from Theodo- 


Seemed to demand its breach. 


Rus's side. 



ON A THRUSH SINGING IN AUTUMN. 433 


I must go hence. I have lost my life 


The State is saved ! Long live our 


and love, 


Lady Gycia, 


But I have saved the State. 


Who saved the State ! 


[Stabs herself ajtd falls on Asander's 


Gycia {rising a little). Yes, I have 


body. 


saved the State ! 


Citizens of Cher son bursting in. 


[Falls back dead. 
Citizens [rvithotit). Long live the 


Cits. The State is saved! Long 


Lady Gycia ! 


may our Cherson flourish ! 


Curtain. 



SONGS OF BRITAIN 



ON A THRUSH SINGING IN 
A UTUMN 

Sweet singer of the Spring, -when the 

new world 
Was filled with song and bloom, and 

the fresh year 
Tripped, like a Iamb playful and void 

of fear, 
Through daisied grass and young leaves 

scarce unfurled, 
Where is thy liquid voice 
That all day would rejoice ? 
Where now thy sweet and homely call. 
Which from gray dawn to evening's 

chilling fall 
Would echo from thin copse and 

tasselled brake, 
For homely duty tuned and love's sweet 

sake ? 

The spring-tide passed, high summer 

soon should come. 
The woods grew thick, the meads a 

deeper hue ; 
The pipy summer growths swelled, lush 

and tall ; 



The sharp scythes swept at daybreak 
through the dew. 

Thou didst not heed at all. 

Thy prodigal voice grew dumb ; 

No more with song mightst thou be- 
guile, 

She sitting on her speckled eggs the 
while. 

Thy mate's long vigil as the slow days 
went, 

Solacing her with lays of measureless 
content. 

Nay, nay, thy voice was Duty's, nor 
would dare 

Sing were Love fled, though still the 
world were fair ; 

The summer waxed and waned, the 
nights grew cold, 

The sheep were thick within the wattled 
fold. 

The woods began to moan. 

Dumb wert thou and alone ; 

Yet now, when leaves are sere, thy 
ancient note 

Comes low and halting from thy doubt- 
ful throat. 

2 1-- 



434 



IN A COUNTRY CHURCH. 



Oh, lonely loveless voice, what dost 

thou here 
In the deep silence of the fading year ? 

Thus do I read the answer of thy song : 
"I sang when winds blew chilly all 

day long ; 
I sang because hope came and joy was 

near, 
I sang a little while, I made good cheer ; 
In summer's cloudless day 
My music died away ; 
But now the hope and glory of the year 
Are dead and gone, a little while I sing 
Songs of regret for days no longer here, 
And touched with presage of the far- 
off Spring." 

Is this the meaning of thy note, fair 

bird ? 
Or do we read into thy simple brain 
Echoes of thoughts which human hearts 

have stirred, 
High-soaring joy and melancholy pain ? 
Nay, nay, that lingering note 
Belated from thy throat — 
"Regret," is what it sings, "regret, 

regret ! 
The dear days pass, but are not wholly 

gone. 
In praise of those I let my song go on ; 
'Tis sweeter to remember than forget." 



IN A COUNTRY CHURCH. 

The organ peals, the people stand. 
The white procession through the aisles. 
As is our modern use, defiles 
In ranks, which part on either hand. 

They chant the psalms with resonant 

voice 
These peasants of our Saxon Kent ; 



With the old Hebrew king rejoice, 
With him grow contrite and repent. 

But when the pale priest, blandly cold, 
White-winged above the eagle bends, 
I lose the ancient words of old. 
The monotone which still ascends. 

For there the village school is set, 
A row of shining faces bright, 
Round cheeks by time unwrinkled yet, 
Smooth heads, and boyish collars white. 

And through the row there runs a smile, 
Like sunlight on a rippling sea — 
A childish mirth, devoid of guile ; 
What may the merry movement be? 

The teachers frown ; not far to seek 
The wonder seems, for it is this : 
A little scholar whose round cheek 
A stain of gules appears to kiss. 

For some low shaft of wintry sun 
Strikes where Dame Dorothy of the 

Grange, 
In long devotions never done, 
Kneels on through centuries of change ; 

And from her robe's unfading rose, 
Athwart the fair heads ranged below, 
A ruddy shaft at random goes. 
And lights them with unwonted glow. 

And straightway all the scene but 

these 
Grows dim for me ; I heed no more 
The preacher's smooth monotonies. 
The chants repeated o'er and o'er. 

For I am borne on fancy's wings 
Far from the Present to the Past : 



IN A COUNTRY CHURCH. 



435 



From those which pass to those which 

last, 
The root and mystery of Things. 

How many an old and vanished day, 
Has gone, she kneeling there the while, 
And watching, with her saintly smile. 
The generations fade away. 

The children came each Sunday there 
To hear the self- same chant and hymn ; 
The boys grew strong, the girls grew 

fair. 
Their lives with fleeting years grew dim. 

Their children's children came and 

went. 
She kneeling in the self-same prayer ; 
They passed to withered age, and bent. 
And left the Lady kneeling there. 

They passed, and on the churchyard 

ground 
No more their humble names are seen ; 
Only upon the billowy mound 
Yearly the untrodden grass grows green. 

They grew, they waned through toil 

and strife, 
From innocence to guilt and sin ; 
They gained what prize was theirs to 

win. 
They sank in shame the load of life. 

And still the kneeling Lady calm 
Throws gules on many a childish head, 
And still the self-same prayers are said. 
The self-same chant, the self-same 
psalm. 

So had they been, before as yet, 
Her far-off grandsires lived and died, 
Ere long descent had nourished pride, 
Before the first Plantagenet. 



No change, unless some change there 

were 
In simpler rite or grayer stone. 
The self-same worship never done, 
And for its very age grown fair. 

Great God, the creatures of Thy hand, 
Must they thus fail for ever still 
Thy high behests to understand, 
To seek and find Thy hidden will ? 

Are Thy hands slow to succour then ? 
And are Thy eyes, then, slow to see 
The toiling, tempted race of men 
Born into sin and misery ? 

For nineteen centuries of Time, 

Nay more, for dim unnumbered years, 

Men's eyes have sought Thy face 

sublime. 
And turned uncomforted, in tears. 

For countless years unsullied youth 
Has sunk through grosser mire of 

sense ; 
And yet men cherish innocence ! 
And yet we are no nearer truth ! 

And not the less from age to age 
Heavenward the unchanging suffrage 

rolls 
From hearts inspired by holy rage. 
And meek and uncomplaining souls. 

Who see no cloud of doubt o'erspread 
The far horizons of the sky. 
But view with clear, unfailing eye 
The mansions of the happy dead. 

Oh, wonder ! oh, perplexed thought I 
Oh, interchange of good and ill ! 
In vain, by life's long pain untaught, 
We strive to solve the riddle still. 



436 



IN SPRING-TIDE — IN AUTUMN. 



In vain, so mixed the twofold skein, 
That none the tangle may unwind ; 
Wnere one the gate of Heaven may 

find, 
Another shrinks in hopeless pain. 

So here the immemorial sum 
Of simple reverence may breed 
A finer worship than might come 
For fruit of some severer creed. 

Kneel, Lady, blazoned in thy place ! 
Through generations children kneel. 
To know is weaker than to feel : 
Though Truth seem far, we know her 
face ! 



IN SPRING-TIDE. 

This is the hour, the day. 
The time, the season sweet. 
Quick ! hasten, laggard feet, 
Brook not delay ; 
Love flies, youth passes, Maytide will 

not last ; 
Forth, forth, while yet 'tis time, before 
the Spring is past. 

The Summer's glories shine 
From all her garden ground. 
With lilies prankt around. 
And roses fine ; 
But the pink blooms or white upon the 

bursting trees. 
Primrose and violet sweet, what charm 
has June like these ? 

This is the time of song. 
From many a joyous throat, 
Mute all the dull year long, 
Soars love's clear note ; 



Summer is dumb, and faint with dust 

and heat ; 
This is the mirthful time when every 

sound is sweet. 

Fair day of larger light, 
Life's own appointed hour. 
Young souls bud forth in white — 
The world's a-flower ; 
Thrill, youthful heart ; soar upnvard, 

limpid voice ; 
Blossoming time is come — rejoice, re- 
joice, rejoice ! 



IN A UTUMN. 

'* Decay, decay," the wildering west 
winds cry, 

*' Decay, decay," the moaning woods 
reply ; 

The whole dead autumn landscape, 
drear and chill. 

Strikes the same chord of desolate sad- 
ness still. 

The drifting clouds, the floods a sullen 
sea, 

The dead leaves whirling from the 
ruined tree. 

The rain which falling soaks the sodden 
way, 

Proclaim the parting summer's swift 
decay. 

Nosong of bird, nor joyous sight or thing, 

Which smooths the wintry forefront of 
the spring ; 

No violet lurking in its mossy bed. 

Nor drifted snow-bloom bending over- 
head. 

Nor kingcups carpeting the meads with 
gold, 

Nor tall spiked orchids purpling all the 
wold ; 



A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. 



437 



But thin. dull herbage which no more 


Thy infinite glories — voices which were 


may grow, 


best 


And dry reeds rustling as the chill 


To mortal loves and earth's poor joys 


winds blow, 


addrest ? 


Bleak hillsides whence the huddled 


How seek our earthly limits to trans- 


flocks are fled. 


cend, 


And every spear of crested grass lies 


And, without halt or pause. 


dead. 


Soaring beyond the limit of our laws, 


" Decay, decay," the leafless woodlands 


Touch with a feeble hand on glories 


sigh. 


without end ? 


The torpid earth, and all the blinded 




sky. 


Nay, great are these indeed 


And down the blurred moor, 'mid the 


And infinite, but not so great as He 


dying day, 


Their Maker who has formed them. 


An age-worn figure limps its weary way. 


who made me. 




Who can in fancy leap, outward and 




outward still 


A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S 


Beyond our System and its farthest star, 


DREAM. 


Beyond the greater Systems ranged afar, 




To which our faintest suns are satellites, 


Far in the west sinks down the Sun 


and no more — 


On bars of violet and gold, 


Beyond, beyond, beyond, and strive to fill 


A soft breeze springs up fresh and 


The illimitable void which never sense 


cold, 


Nor thought alone may compass or 


And darkness a transparent pall 


contain, 


Upon the waiting earth begins to fall, 


Then with a whirling brain 


And, decked with lucent gems of orbed 


Return to the great Centre of all light, 


light, 


Which doth control and bound the 


Walks forth the sable Night, 


Infinite, 


And once again the unfailing miracle is 


And, looking to the undiscovered Sun, 


done. 


Find all perplexity and longing done, 




And am content to wonder and to adore. 


Ineffable, illimitable, immense, 




Wonder of wonders, mystery of Space, 


This 'tis alone 


How can a finite vision meet thy face ? 


Which doth console and soothe our 


How shall not our poor eyes, dazzled 


feeble thought, 


and dim, 


Faint with the too great strain to com- 


Which see but thy vast circle's outward 


prehend 


rim, 


A Universe, which owns nor source nor 


Sink touched before thy gaze with im- 


end. 


potence ? 


Wherever through the boundless wastes 


How shall our feeble voices dare to 


we stray. 


hymn 


For ever and for ever, some faint ray 



438 



A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. 



Of the great central Suu, the hidden 


That is the central Sun which on our 


Will, 


birth 


Attends our wanderings still ; 


Shone, and will shine upon us till the 


Beyond the utmost limits of the sky, 


end; 


Unseen, yet seen, the gaze of an Eternal 


A central Will which holds the worlds 


Eye. 


in space ; 


No waste of systems lies around, 


A Presence, though we look not on its 


But a great Rule by which all things 


face, 


are bound. 


Which sows a cosmic order through the 


A changeless order circles sun with sun ; 


waste of things ; 


One great Will pulses through, and 


A Being, all the beatings of whose wings 


makes them one. 


Are secular wastes of Time ; of whose 


System on system, vast or small, 


great soul 


One great Intelligence directs them all. 


Creations are but moods, in whose vast 


No longer from the endless maze we 


mind 


shrink, 


Antinomies of Thought repose com- 


Like those who on some sea-cliff's 


bined, 


dreadful brink 


Till those which seem to us as change- 


Long to fling down into the empty air 


less laws 


And lose the pain of living, and to be 


Show but as phases of the Unchanging 


Sunk in the deep abysses of the sea ; 


Cause, 


To lose the pain of living and the care, 


And we and all things fade and pass 


Which dogs life like its shadow. 


away. 


Nay, no dread 


Lost in the effulgence of the Boundless 


Have we who know a great Sun over- 


Day. 


head. 




Which shines upon us always, unbeheld. 


Let, then, unbounded Space, 


How should our eyes behold what is 


Sown thick with worlds, encompass us ; 


too great 


we care 


our imperfect state ? 


No whit for it, nor shall our dazzled eyes 


How should our minds reach to it ; 


This waste of Worlds surprise, 


how attain 


Which have looked on its Maker, who 


With a too feeble brain, 


is m.ore 


To comprehend the Unbounded, the 


Than all his work can be, but not the 


Immense, 


less 


Incom-irehensible by finite sense ? — 


Dwells in each human soul that looks 


How through the Finite view the 


on Him 


Infinite, 


Albeit with vision dim ; 


Except by this clear Light ? 


Whose constant Presence all our lives 




confess, 


That is the light, indeed. 


Of whom we are a part, and closer far 


Which lights all souls which come upon 


Than is the furthest, most unmeasured 


the earth. 


star. 



AN ENGLISH IDYLL. 



439 



Than are His great suns, big with 

fruitful strife, 
Seeing that we are a portion of His 

Life, 
Seeing that we hold His Essence — 

some clear spark, 
Which shines when all creation else 

grows dark, 
And are, however impotent and small. 
One with the Will that made and 

governs all. 
* * * * 

And now the night grows thin ; 
A subtle air of newness seems to stir 
Before the dawn, as if its harbinger 
To prisoned souls within. 
Proclaiming the near coming of the day. 
Then Darkness, a great bird, with raven 

wing, 
Flies to the furthest west, and in her 

■ stead 
Young Day, an orient conqueror over- 
head. 
Looks down, and all that waste of 

worlds has fled ; 
And once again the Eternal, mystic 

Birth 
Is born upon the earth. 
And once again the round of whole- 
some life. 
The doubt-dispelling stir and joyous 

strife, 
Chases the dreadful visions of the night. 
Lost in the increasing light ; 
And from the spheres a still voice seems 

to say, 
" Awake, arise, adore, behold the Day ! 
It is enough to be, nor question why ; 
It is enough to work our work and die ; 
It is enough to feel and not to know. 
Behold, the Dawn is breaking ; let us 

go." 



AN ENGLISH IDYLL. 

Once I remember, in a far-off June, 
Leaving the studious cloister of my 

youth. 
Beside the young Thames' stream I laid 

me down. 
Wearied, upon a bank. 'Twas mid- 
summer ; 
The warm earth teemed with flowers ; 

the kingcup's gold. 
The perfumed clover, 'mid the crested 

grass. 
The plantains rearing high their flowery 

crowns 
Above the daisied coverts ; overhead, 
The hawthorns, white and rosy, bent 

with bloom. 
The broad-spread chestnuts spiked 

with frequent flowers. 
And white gold-hearted lilies on the 

stream ; 
All these made joy within my heart, 

and woke 
The fair idyllic phantasies of Greece ; 
And dreaming, well content with the 

rich charm 
Of summer England, long I idly mused : 
" AndjWere the deep-set vales of Thes- 

saly 
Or fair Olympian beech-groves more 

than this ? 
Or the Sicilian meads more rich in 

flowers. 
Where the lost goddess plucked the 

asphodel ? 
Or flowed the clear stream through a 

lovelier shade 
Where Dian bathed and rapt Actreon 

saw? 
Or were they purer depths where Hylas 

played 



440 



AN2MA MUNDI. 



Till the nymphs drew hhiii down ? Ah, 

fairer dreams 
Than our poor England holds ! Grave, 

toil-worn land ! 
Poor aged mother of a graceless brood, 
With shambling gait and limbs by 

labour bent ! 
What should she know of such ? " 

When straight I heard 
A ripple of boyish mirth, and looking 

saw 
Far off along the meads a gliding boat 
Float noiselessly ; lithe forms at either 

end — 
The self-same forms which Phidias fixed 

of old — 
With tall poles, pressed it forward, 

others lay 
Reclined, and all had crowned their 

short smooth hair 
With lilies from the stream, while one 

had shaped 
Some hollow reed in semblance of a 

pipe. 
Making a shrill faint sound — a joyous 

crew, 
Clothed with the grace of innocent 

nakedness. 
Then, while they yet were far, ere yet 

a sound 
Of their poor rustic tones assailed the 

sense. 
Or too great nearness marred the gi-ace 

of form 

Poised sudden in a white row, side by 

side. 
They plunged down headlong in the 

sweet warm tide. 
Then, as I went, within myself I 

said, 
" The young Apollo is not wholly 

fled. 



Nor can long centuries of toil and care 
Make youth less comely or the earth 

less fair. 
To the world's ending Joy and Grace 

shall be. 
I, too, have been to-day in Arcady." 



ANIMA MUNDI. 

Oh great World-Spirit, wherefore art 

thou come ? 
We crave an answer, but thy voice is 

dumb. 

Oh great World-Spirit, whither dost 

thou tend ? 
By what dark paths to what mysterious 

end ? 

We do not know, we cannot tell at 

all. 
Only before thy onward march we 

fall. 
* * * * 

Nay, but before thy throne we fall, we 

kneel ; 
We crave not that thy face thou shouldst 

reveal ; 
We do not seek to know, only to feel. 

We praise thee not in words our tongues 

can tell ; 
Though thy hand slay us, we will not 

rebel. 
Whate'er thy will design for us, 'tis well. 

Compute our lives with all thy bound- 
less past. 

Project them on thy abysmal Future 
vast ; 

Only let all be merged in Thee at last. 



IN PEMBROKESHIRE, 1886. 



441 



IN PEMBROKESHIRE, 1886. 

Through crested grass I took my way 
From my loved home. The sun was 

high ; 
The warm air slept the live-long day j 
No shadowy cloudlet veiled the sky. 

The swift train swept wdth rhythmic 

tune, 
By endless pastures hurrying down, 
"White farm, lone chapel, castled town, 
Then, fringed with weed, the saltlagune. 

And last the land-locked haven blue, 
Thin-sown with monstrous works of 

war. 
And on the sweet salt air I knew 
Faint sounds of cheering from afar. 

* w * * 

Strong arms and backs are bent, and 

then 
They draw us up the fluttering street ; 
Behind, there comes the ordered beat 
Of long-drawn files of marching men. 

At last a halt ; a steep hillside 
Set thick with toil-worn workers strong, 
Grave faces stretching far and wide, 
Fired with the hope to banish wrong. 

Ah me ! how thin one voice appears, 
To reach so many eager minds ! 
Nay, for it speaks to willing ears, 
And what the hearer seeks he finds. 

Unhappy Island of the West ! 
Thy brethren these in race and blood, 
Not like thee tempted or opprest. 
But filled with longing for thy good. 

For just is manhood rude and strong 
And generous the toiler's soul ; 



When these the ship of State control. 
Oppression shall not flourish long. 
* * * * 

The crowds are gone, the hillside bare, 
The last good-nights at length are said, 
The harbour crossed again, the fair 
Large star of eve hangs overhead. 

The shades of tardy evening fall ; 
Lights come in casements here and 

there ; 
Through dewy meads on the cool air 
The wandering landrails hoarsely call. 

The silent roads loom ghostly white ; 
No veil of darkness hides the skies ; 
A sunless dawn appears to rise 
Upon the stilly charmed night. 

The day's hot concourse comes to seem 
Far, far away ; the eager crowd, 
The upturned gaze, the plaudits loud, 
Li the cool silence like a dream. 

And oh, sweet odours, which the air 
Of the calm summer midnight deep 
Draws from the rose which lies asleep, 
And bowery honeysuckles fair. 

Oh, perfumed night ! Some tremulous 

bird 
From the thick hedgerows seems to 

thrill. 
No other sound but this is heard, 
Save ringing horsehoofs, beating still. 

Midnight is past ; there comes a gleam, 
Precursor of the scarce-set sun. 
Through gray streets hushed as in a 

dream 
We sweep, and the long day is done. 



442 



EASTER-TIDE. 



Men pass, but still shall Nature keep 
Her night's cool calm, her dawn's 

bright glow ; 
Unseen her fragrant wild flowers creep, 
Unmarked her midnight odours blow. 

The long injustices of years 
Shall pass ; the hapless Western Isle 
Shall dry the age-long trace of tears, 
And show instead a happy smile. 

The wheels of Fate are swiftly borne 
From point to point, from change to 

change ; 
What yesterday was new and strange ; 
To-morrow scouts as old and worn. 

I may forget the shouting crowd, 
The sea of eyes which upward turn. 
The kindling cheeks, the plaudits loud. 
The sympathies which glow and burn. 

Ay, all things change, but hardly those 
Shall fade — the midnight calm of June, 
The cool sweet airs, the night-bird's 

tune, 
The perfume of the sleeping rose. 



EASTER-TIDE. 

Awake, arise, oh Earth ! 
Thy hour has come at last ; 
The winter's ruin past, 
Spring comes to birth. 
The virgin world with flowers again 

grows bright. 
And in the increasing light 
Doth clothe herself with beauty ; once 

again 
A new creation issues with a stately 
train. 



Oh soul of man, arise 
And keep thy Easter-tide, 
White clothed as is a bride, 
With calm pure eyes ; 
When all things living else rejoice, 
Not thine should be the voice 
Alone to keep dull silence, mute, un- 
heard, 
Amid the joy that wakens every nest- 
ing bird. 

'Tis an old Spring of mirth 

That bids our souls arise ; 

No other moved the priests and 

augurs wise 
Upon the younger earth 
When for the Passover the lamb was 

slain, 
Nor when they did complain 
Of old time for the fair Adonis dead. 
Greeting with tears of joy that dear 
recovered head. 

The same, yet not the same, 
Joy fuller, deeper grief 
Than in the old ages came 
To wake belief. 
The Spring our voices celebrate to-day 
Is not the Spring which fades with 

May, 
Nor that renewal ours which shall be 

done 
Soon as our earth leans outward from 
the averted sun. 

Nor as theirs is our loss 

Who wept the enamoured boy ; 

Ours is a heavier cross, 

A livelier joy, 
Mixed in such sort with grief that one 

is bred 
From the other and by it nourished, 



Gliosis. 



443 



So that without the salutary pain 
Were no place left for this triumphant 
gain. 

Great Law of Sacrifice 
On which our lives are built, 
That with our load of guilt 
Soars to the skies, 
I doubt if ever there was race of man 
But based its life on such a mystic plan, 
From old Prometheus' godlike treachery 
To calm Osiris cold and sad Persephone. 

Therefore, because the end 
Of Winter comes and Death, 
Our yearning souls ascend. 
Faith quickeneth. 
How should it be that man alone could 

cease 
When all things else increase ? 
Man, the first fruit of Time, Creation's 

crown — 
Shall he, while all is Spring, lie hope- 
less and cast down ? 

Ay, always with the Spring 
The waking comes again ; 
Mixed tones of joy and pain 
Our life-chords sing. 
Sweet are the songs of autumn, sweet 

of death. 
And bitter sweet the first-drawn breath. 
And sweet, though full of pain, the 

mortal strife 
When from Death's grasp we struggle 
into Life. 

That is the law of life — 

Joy bought by sacrifice, 

Pleasure for hopeless sighs, 

And rest for strife. 
The earth is no more, as it was at first, 
By some strange spell accurst ; 



A mystery has passed a mystery, 
A boundless hope has bid new heavens 
and earth to be. 

Rise, happy Earth, arise, 
Thy wintry darkness done. 
To greet the new-risen sun 
Oh soul, arise ! 

The joy which stirs the world let it 
wake thee. 

A symbol of thy risen life is born. 

Awake, arise ! this is the very morn ; 

A mystery has been ! a mystery ! 



GHOSTS. 

Sometimes in some forsaken place, 
Hid from the aspect of the sun, 

We come on some forgotten trace 
Of life and years long dead and done. 

Some faded picture's doubtful truth. 
Fixed in the springtime of our days, 

Which through all change of mien 
portrays 
The evanescent charm of youth — ■ 

The rounded cheek, the wealth of hair, 
The bright young eye's unclouded 
blue. 

White head, wan face, were you thus fair ? 
Sad eyes, and were these ever you ? 

Changed, and yet still unchanged 
through change, 
The self-same lives for good or ill. 
Thin ghosts with features known, yet 
strange, 
Of us who live and travail still. 

Thin ghosts ! or is it we who fade 
And are deceased, and keep no more 



444 



SONG — LLYN Y MORWYNION. 



Than some thin unsubstantial shade 
Of the young hopes and fears of yore ? 

Who knows what Life, or Death, or 
Time 
Are in themselves, or whither tend 
The great world's footsteps slow, 
sublime, 
From what dim source — to what 
hidden end ? 

Or if our growth be but decay, 
Or if all Life must wax and grow, 

Or if no change true Being know. 
Though all things outward pass 
away? 

Ah ! not in outward things we know 
The chiefest work of Time and 
Change ; 
But new faiths come, old thoughts 
grown strange. 
Old longings which no more may 
glow. 

Some time-stained sheaf of youthful 
verse. 

Some inarticulate yearning dumb, 
Once dear, ere time and age had come 

To turn the better to the worse. 



In these the gazer starts to see 
A self, not his, reflected most, 

And asking, "Were these part of 
me?" 
Knows he has looked upon a ghost. 



SONG. 

Love took my life and thrilled it 

Through all its strings, 
Played round my mind and filled it 

With sound of wings, 
But to my heart he never came 
To touch it with his golden flame. 

Therefore it is that singing 

I do rejoice. 
Nor heed the slow years bringing 

A harsher voice, 
Because the songs which he has sung 
Still leave the untouched singer young. 

But whom in fuller fashion 

The Master sways, 
For him, swift winged with passion, 

Fleet the brief days. 
Betimes the enforced accents come, 
And leave him ever after dumb. 



FROM WILD WALES. 



LLYN Y MORWYNION. 

By fair Festiniog, 'mid the Northern 

Hills, 
The vales are full of beauty, and the 

heights. 
Thin-set with mountain sheep, show 

statelier far 



Than in the tamer South. There the 
stern round 

Of labour rules, — a silent land, some- 
times 

Loud with the blast that buffets all the 
hills 

Whereon the workers toil, in quarries 
hewn 

Upon the terraced rocksides. Tier on 
tier, 



LLYN V MORWYNION. 



445 



Above the giddy depths, they edge and 

cling 
Like flies to the sheer precipice as they 

strike 
The thin cleft slate. For solace of 

their toil 
Song comes to strengthen them, and 

songlike verse 
In the old Cymric measures, and the 

dream 
Of fame when all the listening thousands 

round 
Are ranged in Session, and the rapt 

array 
Expectant of the singer's soaring voice, 
Or full quire rising thund'rous to the 

skies, 
The sheathed swords, and the sacred 

Chair of oak, 
Where sits the Bard, But most of all 

they prize 
Old memories of the Past, forgotten 

feuds, 
And battles long ago. One tale they 

tell 
Of a deep tarn upon the mountain side, 
Llyn y ]Mor\\7nion called, — "The 

Maidens' Lake ; " 
And thus it is the fair old story runs. 



On Arvon once the men of Meirion, 
Being alone, nor ha\ang hearth or home, 
Swooped down when all her warriors 

were afield 
Against the foemen. And they snatched 

from them 
The flower of all the maidens of the 

race, 
And to their mountain fastness far away 
Bare them unchecked. There with 

great care and love 



They tended them, and in the captives' 

hearts 
The new observance slowly ousted all 
The love of home and country, till they 

stayed 
Content, forgetting all their lives before, 
Parents and kinsfolk, everything but 

love. 

But when the war was ended, and 

their arms 
Set free, the men of Arvon sent demand 
That they should straight restore to 

home and kin 
The maidens they had rapt. Then 

came great doubt 
Upon the men of Meirion, knowing well 
Their strength too weak to match the 

Arvonian hosts 
In unassisted war ; heralds they sent 
To Arvon asking peace, making amends 
For what had been their fault. But the 

others nursed 
Deep anger in their hearts, and to their 

words 
Made only answer, '* Give ye back un- 
touched 
Our daughters and our sisters, whom 

your fraud 
Has stolen from us, or prepare to 

die." 
Then they, taking deep counsel with 

themselves. 
Swore not for life itself would they 

return 
The women, only if themselves should 

will 
To leave them ; and they made request 

of them 
That they might know their wish. But 

when they sought 
To question them, they answered with 

one voice — 



446 



LLYN Y MORWYNION. 



" We will not go ; for barren is the 

lot 
Of maidenhood, and cold the weary fate 
Of loveless lives, the household tasks 

whose weight 
Bears down the childless woman. Since 

we came 
We have known life in the full light of 

home. 
Say to our sires and brothers, that we 

stay 
Willing, and bid our young men that 

they wive 
From out some noble tribe ; for thus 

it is 
Our Cymric race grows strong. But do 

ye bid 
Our mothers comfort them, for they 

shall take 
Their grandsons on their knees ; for we 

are wed 
And cannot more return. Not Fate 

itself 
Can e'er recall the irrevocable Past." 

But when the men of Arvon heard 

the hest 
The herald brought, their souls were 

wroth in them 
Against the ravishers, whose cunning 

wiles 
Had worked such wrong. They called 

their warriors forth 
From every hill and dale, and marched 

in haste 
To Meirion. And they summoned 

them to yield. 
But they refused ; and so the fight was 

set 
For the morrow, on the margin of a 

mere 



There, with the sun, within a close- 
set pass 

The men of Meirion stood, a scanty 
band. 

Waiting the approaching host. With 
grief and pain 

They left their loves, and swift, with 
breaking day. 

Marched with unfaltering steps, with- 
out a word. 

To the field of honour, as men go who 
know 

That all beside is lost. But as they 
stood, 

Ranged in stern silence, waiting for the 
fray, 

They saw a white procession thread the 
pass 

Behind, now seen, now lost, by flowery 
bends, 

Gorse gold and heather purple. At 
their head 

Blodeuwedd, she the flower in face and 
form 

By magic formed, by magic art fore- 
doomed 

To sin and suffer. Then again they 
knew 

The bitterness of death, and clasped 
once more 

The forms they loved, when by the lake 
the sun 

Lit the fierce light of countless marching 
spears. 

Then with a last embrace the tearful 

throng 
Withdrew to where above the fastness 

rose 
A purple slope. No way the assailing 

host 



Deep down within the circuit of the i Might find to it while yet one stalwart 
hills. I ^rm 



LLYN y MORVVYNION, 



447 



Of Meirion lived. Tovvcard the lake it 

fell, 
Till in a sheer, precipitous cliff it sank, 
Its base in the unfathomable deep. 

Now, while the maidens like a fleece 

of cloud 
Whitened the hill, or like a timid flock 
From nearer danger shrinking, swift 

there came 
Along the grassy margin of the lake 
The countless spears of Arvon. And 

their sires 
And brethren saw them, and great wrath 

and joy 
Fired them and urged them onward, till 

they surged 
And broke on Meirion. But her strong 

sons stood 
And flung them backward ; and the 

frightened throng 
Of white-robed suppliants saw the deed, 

and feared, 
Hiding their eyes, hovering 'twixt hope 

and fear, 
Divided 'twixt their lovers and their 

kin. 

All day the battle raged, from morn 

to eve ; 
All day the men of Arvon charged and- 

broke. 
And charged again the little band which 

stood 
Unshaken in the pass, but hourly grew 
Weaker and weaker still. But at the 

last 
The noise of battle ceased awhile ; the 

shouts. 
The cries, grew silent. On the purple 

hill 
The kneeling women saw the Arvonian 

host 



Retreating with their dead, and rose to 

go 
With succour to their lovers. As they 

gazed, 
Sudden, as with a last despairing 

strength 
And a hoarse shout, again, a torrent of 

steel. 
The men of Arvon, by their own weight 

pressed, 
Burst on the scant defenders of the 

pass ; 
Like some fierce surge which from the 

storm-vext sea, 
Through narrow inlets fenced by rocky 

walls, 
Lifts high its furious crest, and sweeps 

in ruin 
Within the rayless, haunted ocean caves, 
Rocks, wreckage, and the corpses of 

the dead. 

And as the women, impotent to save, 
With agonizing hands and streaming 

eyes 
Looked down upon the pass, they saw 

their loves 
Driven back, o'erwhelmed, surrounded, 

flashing swords 
And thrusting spears and broken shields, 

and heard 
The noise of desperate battle, then a 

pause 
And silence, as the last of Meirion 's sons 
Sank in his blood and the long fight 

was done. 

Then suddenly, ere yet the conquer- 
ing host 

Might climb to them, Blodeuwedd, 
standing clothed 

In her unearthly beauty, faced the 
thronsr 



448 



THE PHYSICIANS OF MYDDFAL 



Of shrinking women. Not a word she 


Into the unfathomed depths, like some 


spake. 


great flight 


The sinking sun upon her snowy 


Of white birds swooping from a sea- 


robe 


cliff down 


Shone with unearthly gold ; like some 


To ocean. The still waters leapt in 


fair bird 


foam ; 


Leading the flock she showed. With 


One loud shriek only woke the air, and 


one white arm 


then 


She pointed to the dreadful pass where 


Silence Avas over all, and night and 


lay 


death. 


The thick-piled corpses, with the other 




signed 




Toward the sheer cliff, and to the lake 




beneath 


Still sometimes, when the dreaming 


Motioned. One word she uttered — 


peasants go 


"Follow me," 


By the lone mountain tarn at shut of 


And all who heard it knew and shared 


day, 


her mind. 


The white clouds with the eve descend^ 




ing swift 


Then looking to the heavens, she 


Down the steep hillside to the lake may 


hurried down 


seem 


Through thyme and heather, chanting 


The white-robed maidens falling, and 


some wild hymn 


the shriek 


To the Immortal Gods ; and with her 


Of night birds, fair Blodeuwedd and 


went 


her train ; 


The white-robed throng, and when they 


And fancy, by the ancient fable fed. 


gained the verge, 


Turns from the duller Present's dust 


Without a pause, plunged through the 


and glare 


empty air 


To the enchanted twilights of the Past. 



IT. 



THE PHYSICIANS OF MYDDFAL 



Far, far away in wild Wales, by the shore of the boundless Atlantic, 

Where the cloud-capt peaks of the North are dwarfed to the hills of the South, 

And through the long vale to the sea, the full-fed, devious Tovvy 

Turns and returns on itself, like the coils of a silvery snake, 

A grey town sits up aloft on the bank of the clear, flowing river, 

As it has sat since the days when the Roman was first in the land. 

A town, with a high ruined castle and walls mantled over with ivy, 

With church towers square and strong and narrow iri-egular streets. 

And, frequent in street and lane, many-windowed high-shouldered chapels. 



THE PHYSICIANS OF MYDDFAI, 



449 



Whence all the still Sabbath ascend loud preaching and passionate prayer, 
Such violent wrestling with sin, that the dogs on the pavement deserted 
Wake with a growl from their dreams at the sound of the querulous voice. 
And the gay youths, released from the counter and bound for the seaside or 

hillside, 
Start as they wake on their way echoes of undevout feet, 
And here and there a rude square, with statues of popular heroes, 
A long quay with scarcely a ship, and a hoary bridge spanning the stream, 
The stream which struggles in June by the shallows where children are swimming, 
The furious flood -"'hich at Yule roars seaward, resistless along. 
Though the white steam ribbons float by it, forlorn it seems, almost forsaken. 
All the day long in the week the dumb streets are hushed in repose, 
But on market or fair days there comes a throng of Welsh-speaking peasants 
From many a lonely farm in the folds of the rain-beaten hills, 
And the long streets are filled with the high-pitched speech of the chaffering 

Cymry, 
With a steeple-crowned hat, here and there, and the red cloaks which daunted 

the French. 
Scarce in Keltic Brittany's self, or in homely Teutonic Silesia, 
So foreign a crowd may you see as in this far corner of Wales. 

Above the grey old town, at the mouth of the exquisite valley. 
Rises a quaint village church deep in o'ershadowing yews ; 
On a round-topped hill it stands, looking down on the silvery river 
And the smooth meadows enced by tall elms, and the black kine, like flies on 

the green. 
Below, 'midst its smooth-pleached la':.ns, stands the many-roofed Anglican 

palace. 
And aloft from its straight-ridged pines, the enchanter's summit ascends. 
Thence along the upward vale, by fold upon fold of the river. 
By park and by tower, at last the far-off mountain chains soar. 
Flecked with shadow and sunshine which float on the side of the desolate 

moorland. 
And the whole still landscape lies bathed in a haze of ineffable peace. 

There, where the mountains ascend by the white little town of Llandovery, 
Steeply the circular side of the crater-like summit dips down. 
A blue lake lies beneath, deep set in the desolate hollow, 
Where scarcely a breath of air ruffles in summer its face. 
The Van Lake 'tis called of old time, like the Van Lake of distant Armenia. 
Hardly a wayfarer's foot comes near, or a wayfarer's eye. 
But far, far below are seen the white homesteads, dotting the valley, 
And to-day, as of old, still silence and solitude everywhere reign. 

2 G 



450 THE PHYSICIANS OF MYDDFAI. 

There, as in crowded towns, life is real and full of striving ; 
There, too, is life fulfilled of small hopes and of trivial fears. 
There, too, the finger of fate, unavoidable, pitiless, awful. 
Points with unfaltering aim, to the road which our footsteps shall tread. 
Love is among them, and hate, low desires and high aspirations, 
Fortune is blind there as here, the good mourn, and the wicked rejoice. 
Only there the sense of the Past, the romantic, the mystical lingers. 
Touched with a glamour and charm, denied to the turmoil of towns. 
The light which never has been, still shines on those hillsides secluded, 
Illuming with rays, not of earth, those homely and labouring lives. 
Here is a tale which is cherished to-day through that far-withdrawn valley. 
Half believed by the aged folk still, but year by year fading away. 



Long, long ago, when our Princes were falling in fight with the Norman, 
And all our wild Wales lay o'erwhelmed by a torrent of rapine and blood, 
A brave peasant woman strove here with hard fate, though her husband had 

fallen, 
Strove for her only boy, who was rising to manhood apace. 
So close was the bond which bound widowed mother and dutiful stripling. 
None of Myddfai's daughters touched the young man's self-contained heart. 
A kindly fortune smiled on the toil of the desolate woman. 
Their flocks and their herds increased on the meads of the bountiful vale, 
So quickly their numbers grew, that from the shorn valley he drove them 
To fresh fields and pastures new on the side of the mystical hills. 

Morning and evening he watched on the lonely side of the hollow. 
While the grey kine wandered at will on the hill's half-precipitous steep. 
Oft on the lake's still surface, no breath came to ruffle the mirror. 
Nor sound, save the boulders rolled downward, that stirred for a moment its 

calm. 
All the day long he mused, wrapt in thought on the desolate hillside, 
All day the sure-footed kine cropt the sweet grass of the hills. 
Thoughts came to him, innocent thoughts of a chaste youth guileless of error. 
Thoughts of a maiden as fair as a young man's passionate dream. 

Fair were the maidens of Myddfai, but fairer his far-off ideal, 
Which touched with a glamour of gold the day-dreams of innocent youth. 
All the day long he dreamt on, gazing down on the blue of the waters. 
Till the plash of the trout, as they rose, seemed the oar of some mystical bark ; 
All the day long he mused, and with evening, by moonlight or starlight, 
Dreaming he wound his slow way with his kine to the valley below. 
Dreaming through fair summer days and the long dark evenings of winter 
The sweet shy dreams of a youth fulfilled of a virginal shame, 



THE PHYSICIANS OF MYDDFAL 



451 



In secret his mother noted the dreams which her son was dreaming, 
Marking the far-off look in the absent eyes of the boy. 
P'ain would she rouse him with jests and bantering words, but the stripling 
Smiled a soft smile in reply, then turned to his musings again. 

When he had spent many days in happy and undisturbed dreaming, 
One day, as the setting sun threw beams of bright gold on the lake, 
Lo ! a great marvel and wonder, a herd of phantom-like oxen 
Seemed to his dazzled eyes to emerge from the mystical depths. 
White they were, brindled and white, heavy dewlapped, lords of the meadows. 
Driven as it seemed by a swan from the lake's far centre along. 
Nearer and nearer they drew, till the swan to his yearning vision 
Grew to a maiden as fair as the fanciful Fair of his dreams. 
Gold were her locks and blue her eyes as the clear sky of autumn. 
White was her bosom and red the half-opened rose of her mouth. 
Nearer and nearer she came, till the youth, with ineffable longing. 
Stretched forth his passionate arms to fold to his bosom the Fair, 
Stretched forth, and offered her bread in humble token of friendship ; 
But the Fair smiled a sweet smile, smiled and eluded his grasp. 
Then, as he stood on the brink, in mute and motionless yearning, 
Lo ! with a silvery laugh, the fair vision faded away. 

Oftentimes thus on the brink he stood afterwards waiting the maiden, 
Often she came not at all, or a strong wind ruffled the deep. 
Twice again did she come, and he held forth bread for her taking, 
Still, with a silvery laugh, refusing, she faded away. 

Careworn the young man grew, and spent with unsatisfied yearnings, 
Nor recked though the kine unheeded strayed on the perilous steeps. 
Never again the lake maiden came by sunlight or moonlight. 
Till his fond hope too long deferred, wasted him body and soul. 
All his sleepless nights were filled with the pitiless vision ; 
All the musing days, a slow fire burned in his breast ; 
Half ashamed, he told his mother his pain, and the pitying woman 
Sighed that her son should thus pine, but knew not to succour his grief. 
Marking his cheeks' red flush, she feared lest her son might be taken, 
Till she found no heart for her toil, and her substance wasted away. 

There, when Midsummer Eve was come, the magical season, 
The young man wandered in vain on the brink of the mystical lake ; 
There, when AU-Hallow-tide came, he wandered, if only the maiden 
Might rise on his longing eyes ; but never at all did she come. 
At last, on the year's last night, he, stealthily rising at midnight, 



452 



THE PHYSICIANS OF MYDDFAI. 



To the cold lake side went, hopeless, with faltering feet. 

The full moon bathed in silver steep hillside and slumbering waters. 

By the cold lake side he paused, with something of half-renewed hope. 

When, borne on the face of the waters, behold by the reeds of the lake side 

Floating a magical disc of milk-white mystical bread. 

Swift, yet with reverence too, as one taking the Host at the altar, 

Kneeling, the youth partook of the strange ineffable food. 

Till ere the weird rite was ended, again a marvellous portent 

Greeted his longing eyes, and stayed the quick throb of his heart, 

For lo ! on the silvery path of the moon on the undisturbed waters, 

The herd that he saw once before came slowly gliding to land. 

And beyond them — oh, vision of bliss ! — the maid of his dreams, approaching, 

Plying a light golden oar, in a swift- moving shallop of gold. 

Nearer she came and more near, while his heart stood still with emotion, 

Fearing the glorious dream should once again vanish away ; 

Nearer and nearer she came, and leaped from the skiff to the lake side. 

And lay, in unearthly beauty, willingly clasped in his arms. 

When he found tongue to speak, " Oh, my love, at last have I found thee ! 
Though not of earth is thy race, oh, stoop to my virginal love. 
Oh, it is long I have loved thee, and though I know thee immortal. 
Tarry awhile, fair vision, leave me not loveless again ! 

Come from thy mountain heights, come from thy dwelling deep down in the waters. 
Pity me ere I die who can only live in thy love." 

Then the maid, " Rhiwallon, I love thee ; long time have I tried thy devotion, 
Long have I pitied thy vigils spent in these desolate hills ; 
Always have I been near thee, unseen have I witnessed thy yearnings. 
Only the mystical bread was wanting to join us in one. 

Now we are one heart and soul, I will live with thee always, and love thee." 
And together the mystical bread they ate, and their lives were made one. 

Then said the maiden, "Oh, mortal ! this warning I needs must give thee. 
Thy wife will I be all thy days — thy dear wife, faithful and true, 
Nourish thy children, obey thee in all things, be dutiful always, 
Fill all thy fields with the dowry thou seest of full-uddered kine. 
Love thee and cherish thee always, and plenish thy barn with good harvests. 
Long as the will of high Heaven gives thee to live upon earth. 
Only, this ordinance holds if a maid of the race of immortals 
Wed with a mortal on earth, leaving her higher estate. 
If he should strike her three times, she and hers, her bonds being loosened, 
Whether she will it or not, return to her kindred again." 
Careless the fond youth heard, and smothered her warning with kisses, 
And down through the joyous New Year he went with his bride to their home. 



IHE PHYSICIANS OF MYDDFAI. 453 



Long in great welfare ihey lived, knit together in happy wedlock ; 
Never a cloud arose on the tranquil sky of their home, 
The great herds throve and increased more than all the herds of the valley, 
The robbers who harried the vale left them untouched and in peace. 
Never was husband more fond of the wife of his boyish affection. 
Never was wife more sweet, or fuller of dutiful love. 
The good mother died full of years, and calling her daughter blessed. 
Children were born of their love, more than others prudent and fair. 
Their strong sons were good and discreet, laborious, eager for knowledge. 
Scarcely the Abbot himself equalled their learning, 'twas said ; 
Fair were the daughters and good, sweet, dutiful maidens, and prudent ; 
Nowhere in all our wild Wales was a race so gracious and fair. 

And yet, when their wedlock was new, that had happened which now was 
forgotten. 
The youth and his bride were bidden one day to a christening feast. 
The young husband hastened to go ; but the wife, with half-hid reluctance, 
Loitered till almost too late to traverse the difficult hills. 
Many a pretext she urged, not loving the rites of religion, 
Holding some primitive faith, old as the hills and the seas,^ 
Till, when the hour was grown late, Rhiwallon in playful impatience. 
Seeking his wife up and down, found her reluctant at last. 
" Come," said he, " wife, it is time," and smilingly on her fair shoulder 
Tapped with his empty glove, and she rose and obeyed with a sigh. 
" Dearest, remember," she said, **my warning when first we were wedded ; 
Once that has been which should not. Remember, be careful, my heart ! " 
Then to the christening she went, nor shrank from the priest nor the water. 
Only a vague disquietude long time troubled their souls. 

Also long years after this, when the past was wellnigh forgotten, 
They were bidden together again to a gay marriage feast in the vale ; 
Not now was the wife unwilling, but ready to go and eager. 
In deep contentment the pair went forth to the innocent feast. 
Duly the marriage sped, the priest said his mystical office, 
No word the goodwife spake, as she knelt in her place by her lord ; 
But when the marriage was done, and they sate at the jovial bride-feast. 
Sudden the goodman perceived his wife in a passion of tears ; 
Sobbing, she sate by his side inconsolable loudly lamenting, 
Till all the gay company rose with dismay from the midst of their mirth. 
Always her prescient soul saw the future hidden from mortals. 
The grief that should come of that day, the dreadful problems of life, 
The lives that from that day's mirth should arise — to what fate predestined ? 
The long generations of men foredoomed to sorrow alone. 



454 TJIE PHYSICIANS OF MYDDFAI, 

Knowing the fever of life and its ending, the mystical woman 

Held not her peace, but burst forth in a passion of weeping and pain ; 

But Rhiwallon, knowing not all, but filled with distress for the bridefolk, 

Turned to her, and bidding her cease, touched lightly her arm in reproof. 

In one moment she ceased from her wailing, and scarcely regarding her goodman, 

'* Love," she said, " that was the second time ; only one other remains." 

All these things had they almost forgot, living happy in wedlock, 
Watching their children grow to strong manhood and womanhood fair ; 
Smoothly their lives flowed along in unbroken weal and affection. 
As their devious Towy, which wound through cornland and mead to the sea. 
Not a thought had the goodman of death, or of parting, than death more bitter ; 
But the goodwife, loving her lord, watched with solicitous thought. 
Scarce from her prescient mind had faded the danger which pressed them, 
The bliss v/hich a careless touch might turn in a moment to pain ; 
Here on the kindly earth she had made her choice and her dwelling. 
Here she would willingly live with her husband, and with him would die. 
Far off her birthland appeared, cold and lifeless the mystical waters ; 
Better to sleep in the meads than to pass that cold portal again. 
Love's light beaming warm on her life, in her veins the warm human life-blood 
Filled with new longings a heart which was only half human before. 
" What would life profit her now to those ice-cold abysses returning? 
Better to die upon earth by the fate which awaiteth us all." 
Thus the goodwife, half human in heart, mused in silence, her children around 

her. 
Filled with a deep boding sense of the terrible nearness of fate. 

Last it befell once again that the pair were bidden together 
(Christening for youth, for full age bride-feasts, for old age the grave), 
To a solemn burial they went ; 'twas a friend of their youth who was taken. 
All the desolate house was hushed in mourning and tears, 
But before the dead was borne forth, the strange heart of the mystical woman. 
Long keeping silence with pain, broke out at last into mirth. 
Was it because she knew that the burden of living is heavy. 
From what load of misery here the dead are delivered by death ? 
Or was it because she knew of her old primreval religion 
How much higher than human life is the lot of the just who are dead ? 
Or was it her soul had beheld the restitution of all things, 
And felt a great hope and joy which lightened the shadow of death ? 
Who shall tell ? but her elfin nature broke forth in immoderate laughter, 
Piercing the mourners' hearts, as they stood round the bier of the dead. 
Long time the goodman was mute, till at last keen shame overcame him, 
No more could he suffer unmoved that meaningless laughter and joy. 



THE PHYSICIANS OF MYDDFAI. 455 

" Hush, hush ! wife," he said, '* you forget," and touched her again on the shoulder. 
" For the ending of troubles I laughed," she replied, and grew grave and was still. 

Then with a sob and a sigh the goodwife, looking behind hei*, 
Rose from her place by her lord and swiftly passed forth by the door. 
" Farewell," she said, " oh my love ; thou hast struck me the third and the last 

time. 
Fate 'tis that parteth us — Fate ! Farewell ! I shall see thee no more." 
So strange she showed and so weird that the goodman dared not detain her. 
Seeing his goodwife no more, and knowing the finger of Fate ; 
Seeing his goodwife no more, no longer the well-beloved features, 
The hair that was silvered by time, the dim eyes with their motherly care ; 
But the radiant figure once more, golden-haired, azure-eyed, and immortal. 
That at midnight arose, long ago, from the depths of the mystical lake. 
None offered to stay her course, but she glided alone, unattended. 
Splendid in radiant youth, up the lonely, precipitous hills. 
Not to her home or her children returned, nor tarried a moment ; 
Straight to the hillside she went, weeping and blinded with tears, 
And as she passed by the fields where her magical cattle were grazing, 
Always she carolled aloud a strange and mystical song. 
"Come hither, Brindle ! " she sang; "come. White Spot! bring your calves 

with you ! 
Come thou, White Lord of the Herd, who wert born in the House of the King ! 
Come, we must go to our home ! and ye, yoked patient-eyed oxen, 
Come with me, come with the rest ; it is time, come all of ye home ! " 

The great herds heard the call, and streamed in an endless procession ; 
The gray oxen burst from the furrow, leaving the ploughshare behind. 
Up the rough hillside they climbed behind her, obeying her mandate. 
Till they showed to the gazers below like a white cloud mounting the steep. 
Up the steep hillside they sped to the lake, and the wondering peasants 
Heard a clear voice from the hill, " Deuwch adre ! Deuwch adre ! Come home ! " 

Never again upon earth had Rhiwallon sight of his helpmeet. 
Never again did he seek his love on the lake and the hills ; 
Wayworn and weary he grew, nor might dreams of beauty allure him. 
The face that he loved and lost was aged, with silvery hair ; 
But the beautiful being who went from her seat at the fateful banquet — 
What was her youth to his age, or his age to her radiant youth ? 
What if his eyes once again should perceive the bright vision of old time. 
Old as he was, and changed from the hopeful dreams of the boy? 
Nay, it would kill him to see the black deep which had taken his life's love. 
Never again did he gaze on its hateful magical face. 



456 THE PHYSICIANS OF MYDDFAI 

But the strong sons, when they knew theif mother was gone from among them — 
Gone without even a word, to strange death or to mystical life — 
Evening by evening would climb the lonely, precipitous hillside, 
Yearning if haply their eyes might see the loved features again. 
Long, long vigils they spent in vain, nor ever the vision 
Came, any more than it comes to all children orphaned on earth, 
Till one night, when all hope was dead, they burst into passionate weeping. 
"Mother, thy children," they said, "call thee, and call thee in vain. 
Break through the fetters of Fate, take again thy womanly nature ; 
Come to us, mother, once more, let us see thee and hear thee again." 
And lo ! as they looked, in the moonlight a shining, beautiful figure 
Came in a shallop of gold, on the silvery path of the moon. 
Nearer and nearer it came ; but lo ! as they gazed in fond yearning, 
Not as their mother it seemed, but a youthful, fairy-like form. 
Gold were her locks and blue her eyes, as the clear sky of autumn. 
Bitterly weeping, they turned fi-om the lake side with sinking young hearts — 
Turned from the lake side, and went, side by side, down the hill paths in silence. 
Silent, with never a word, till they came within sight of their home. 
Then close behind them they heard a sweet voice, which called to them softly, 
And, turning round quickly, they saw the mother they loved and had lost. 

"Listen, dear sons," she said, "With what spells you have drawn me ye 
know not. 
No power but motherly love can bring an immortal to earth, 
No other love can avail to reknit the bonds that are broken ; 
Only her child's strong cry calls back a mother again. 
Give me your hands and kiss me ; for see, I am old as you knew me. 
The youth of those cold depths changed for the kindlier ripeness of earth. 
Lo,' I am now as I was, when an earthly love kept me among you, 
Only I view all things with a clearer and perfecter sight. 
Yours, dear sons, it must be to succour your suffering brothers. 
Bound to a body which age and disease waste quickly away, 
Healers your race shall be, knowing many a secret of Nature, 
And all the virtues of herbs, which are sent for the comfort of man. 
When ye come to these lonely heights, I will meet you and speak with you always. 
Teaching the secrets of life, which are hid from the great ones of earth. 
Come to me often, dear sons ; I shall see you afar, and will meet you, 
Walk with you always, discourse with you, teach you to live and be wise. 
Say to my girls that they cherish their father and comfort him always ; 
Bid them remember their mother, who loves as she loved them on earth. 
And now, farewell, dear hearts, since to earth your yearnings have brought me. 
While you live I will always be with you. Be wise, then, my children, and 
good.'' 



THE PHYSICIANS OF MYDDFAI. 457 

Often at evening, the youths would climb to the mystical lake side, 
Culling the simples that grew on the slopes of the desolate hills — 
" Pant y Meddygon," men called it, "The dingle of the Physicians " — 
And with them, wherever they went, their mother invisible came, 
Teaching them all that 'tis lawful to know of the secrets of Nature 
And the powers of healing that seem to be God's own prerogative gift. 
Such was the knowledge they took from their loving, mystical mother, 
In all our wide Britain was found no leech so skilful as they. 
All the sick of the country around flocked to them to be healed by their cunning ; 
Broad lands in Myddfai and rank the Lord Rhys gave for their skill. 
Often, for years and for years, men might see the gentle Physicians 
Culling the herbs on the hills, to battle with death and with pain. 
From manhood to age they passed, still learning and perfecting knowledge, 
Mounting the hillside at last with slower and tottering steps ; 
And often a shepherd would tell of a clear voice which spoke with them always, 
And oft of a shadowy form, guiding their faltering feet. 

So they passed, and were laid in the grave, obeying the mandate of Nature, 
Wrapt round in the sweet, cold earth by the kindly general law. 
Their sons and their sons' sons came, increasing the lore of their fathers ; 
Bat no kindly Presence came to walk with them over the hills. 
Slowly, through ages of Time, as the fierce glare of knowledge assails it. 
Hardly the fair tale can live in the light of our commoner day ; 
But still through the country side runs the fame of the gentle Physicians. 
The grove of Physician Evan is known in Myddfai to-day. 
" Lhvyn Ifaii Feddyg," it runs, and another — " Llwyn Meredydd Fcdd3^g." 
Thus, in the old, old tongue, the old, old legend survives. 
The skill, which through centuries lightened the burden of suffering mortals, 
Lacked not memorials still in the hearts of the aged and sick ; 
Nay, in fair Brecknock itself, in the church of far-off Llandefallte, 
Only a century since, were their praises engraved on their tombs. 
Where is the sceptic would doubt the tale of the mystical mother, 
If, five centuries after she went, the Meddygon of Myddfai could heal ? 
Or if living men in their youth, on the first fair Sabbath of August, 
Have thronged from the fair town below to the banks of the mystical lake. 
Hoping to sec its still surface boil sudden, the white herds emerging, 
And the golden shallop and oar, and the beautiful Presence of old — 
Hoping, but hoping in vain, yet in simple belief unshaken. 
For had they not witnessed her cures of the weak, and the halt, and the blind ? 

But to-day, with its broader light, flouts these beautiful stories romantic. 
No more these fair visions unearthly are seen on the lakes and the hills. 
From knowledge alone is strength ; but 'tis oh for the fair dreams of old time, 



458 



THE CURSE OF PANTANNAS. 



The genius which clothed deep truths in fanciful vestures and fair ! 

Not more in the legends of Hellas, than these fair myths of the Cymry, 

Are grave truths and precious set in a beautiful framework of song. 

Let them be ; they are fair, they are fine, though they wear not their pearl on 

their foreheads. 
Let them be ; they are flowers of our Race, and as is the flower is the fruit. 
Not in the savage tales of the Norseman the Cymry delighted — 
Tales of blood-stained feasts and rude gods, consumed in a furnace of fire — 
But this gentle Physician's story of ruth for suffering mortals, 
Mild wisdom, o'ermastering Fate, young passion, and motherly love. 
Not wholly your tale shall perish, oh kindly Physicians of Myddfai, 
Nor the charm of that mystical soul which was born of and lost in the deep ; 
Not wholly, while speech is mine, though the low rays of knowledge shall flout you, 
And in its broad, pitiless glare you dwindle and vanish away. 

But still, as I linger and gaze, perusing the exquisite valley, 
Upward by castle and peak, downward by river and town. 
Whether from wooded Cystanog, or yew-shaded graves of Llangunnor, 
Closing the upward gaze, far off lies the mystical steep. 
Many fair scenes lie between us— gray DrysUvvyn's verdant hillock, 
Grongar long precious to verse, Dynevor's castle and wood. 
High perched on its precipice-crags the ruins of grim Cerrigcennen, 
Or the green vale higher than these, where the fair Towy winds and unwinds. 
However the gaze ascends, the dark precipice closes the landscape, 
Beneath whose difficult steep lies the haunted abyss of the lake. 
Always the story comes back as I gaze, the beautiful legend 
Which here for long ages of time the wondering peasants believed. 
In yonder churchyard lie those, who ere they were freed from the body, 
Grew strong through their poor brief lives by the gift of the Fair of the lake ; 
And, as the sun moves to the West and defines the deep shades of the hollow, 
I am fired by the fair old tale, till almost I take it for true. 



in. 

THE CURSE OF PANTANNAS. 

'Mid fair Glamorgan's hills the close- 
set vales 

Teem with men's works and toil. The 
great shafts rise. 

Belching forth smoke and fire ; the 
labouring beams 



Of the great engines slowly lift and 

pause 
And fall with rhythmic beat. The 

labouring to\\n 
Creeps down the winding valley ; the 

poor streets 
Are deep in inky dust. There comes 

no sound 
But children's clamour or the sob or 

shriek 



THE CURSE OF PANTANNAS. 



459 



Of the quick-throbbing steam. The 


The City of the Martyr. Here, where 


men are sunk 


still 


Beneath the earth, or sleeping weary 


The Cymric lore, the Cymric speech 


sleep. 


survive. 


Toil, toil, or rest from toil, that is the 


The half-forgotten fables of old time. 


sum 


Of gnome and fairy, flourish undis- 


Of those unnumbered lives. Yet are 


turbed 


they filled 


Amid the noontide glare of common 


With joys and griefs as are the great 


day, 


on earth, 


And one there is reaped from this very 


And through the teeming village love 


spot 


and toil 


And breathing of the race, and it is 


Are everywhere ; the poor lives come 


this :— 


to birth, 




Grow ripe and are deceased, but never 




more 




The face of nature is as 'twas at first. 


Long, long ago, the fair-folk on the 




earth 


But on the unfenced hillsides, far 


Were frequent, and their rings upon the 


above. 


meads 


The sounds, the dust, the smoke, come 


Showed green wherever virgin pastures 


not at all. 


were, 


Still solitude is there, where seldom 


And o'er the leas their elfin music 


foot 


thrilled 


Of weary toil intrudes ; the keen cool 


Whether of oaten pipe or silvery flute, 


air 


While the young moon was rising on 


Blows fresh and still untainted on the 


the hills, 


hills ; 


And the gay elves footed it merrily 


Awhile the dark pines climb aloft, then 


Upon the dry smooth turf. So oft they 


stay. 


came. 


Like a tired traveller, and naught 


Summer and winter, on his sweet short 


remains 


grass. 


But short sweet grass and thyme and 


That one grave churl who at Pantannas 


nibbling sheep. 


dwelt, 


And mountain torrents hid in deep 


Hating the senseless revel and the race. 


ravines. 


In anger to the witch who dwelt hard 


While the swift gaze ranges from vale 


by 


to vale 


Revealed his case, demanding if she 


Masked by its veil of smoke. And, 


knew 


when 'tis night. 


Some potent charm wherewith to free 


Immense Auroras, glaring o'er the sky, 


his life 


Mark where amid the folded hillsides 


From this insensate mirth of godless 


lies 


souls. 



460 



THE CURSE OF PANTANNAS. 



Then she, knowing his wish and all 


Of dance and song grew silent. Never 


the lore 


more 


Of the forbidden books, counselled him 


Came those strange elfin rings upon 


thus :— 


his fields. 




Nor any traveller passing saw a glimpse 


*' Wherever on thy pastures shows a 


Of those quick-tripping feet ; but far 


ring 


away 


Which tells of elfin revelry by night, 


The fair-folk turned, where yet no cruel 


Yoke thy strong oxen, driving straight 


share 


through them 


Was sent to kill the greensward. Spring- 


Thy ploughs, till all lie fallow. Sow 


tide came : 


them thick 


The fields grew splendid with the 


With kindly corn fit for the use of 


wheat's bright green, 


man. 


When, one day as the sun had kissed 


So, when the harvest comes, this tricksy 


the hills. 


folk, 


The grave churl, turning homeward, 


That hates the newer race of mortal 


saw a form 


men 


Upon his path which threatened him, 


And that which gives them food, will 


and said. 


come no more, 


" Daw dial ! " " Vengeance comes ! " 


For chiefly the unsullied meads they 


And in the night, 


love 


When all was still, there came a noise 


Where never ploughshare came since 


which shook 


the old time 


The house as though 'twould fall, and 


Ere men were first on earth. So shalt 


the same voice, 


thou gain 


" Daw dial ! " And when now 'twas 


Great harvests for thy wealth, and shalt 


harvest- tide 


disperse 


And the great barns stood open for the 


This cursed people, and shalt reap white 


grain. 


wheat 


One night, no ear nor straw was in the 


Till all thy barns o'erflow, and thou 


fields. 


indeed 


Only black ashes, and the same strange 


Art lord of thy own lands far more than 


form 


now. 


Met him again, pointing a sword at 


Do thou this thing, and Fortune shall 


him, 


be thine, 


And in the same weird accents, '* It 


And peace and the full mastery of thy 


begins," 


own." 


" Nid yw ond dechreu." 




Then the churl, afraid, 


So did the churl. He drove his iron 


Begged for forgiveness, willing that the 


ploughs 


fields 


Through the inviolate meads, and 


Should turn to meads again, whereon 


straight the sounds 


the sprite 



THE CURSE OF PANTANNAS. 



461 



Promised at last that he would pray 


The self-same threat, "Daw dial!" 


his king 


" Vengeance comes ! " 


Forgiveness of the fault, and come 


Oft heard across the years ; but since 


again 


long use 


On the third day, bringing his lord's 


Obscures the sense, so, when this 


behest. 


warning came 




And no _harm followed it, the wealthy 


Now, when the third day came, the 


squire 


churl went forth 


Who held Pantannas then, took little 


Through his burnt fields, and there 


heed 


again the elf 


Of half-forgotten memories. His young 


Waited, and to the other made report, 


son 


" The king's word is for aye unchange- 


Rhydderch was come to manhood, and 


able. 


would wed 


And vengeance must be done. Still, 


Gwen, daughter of Pencraig, and both 


since thy fault 


their houses 


Thou dost repent, and hast atoned in 


Were fain of it. A noble pair were 


part, 


they. 


Therefore, not in thy time, nor of thy 


In fitted years, and rank, and mutual 


sons. 


troth. 


Shall the curse fall, but, poised on 


No cloud came on the sky of their 


high, await 


young love, 


Thy distant seed." Then he, as one 


But all men praised the bridegroom's 


who hears 


gallant port 


Reprieve from death, o'erjoyed sent forth 


And the bride's sweetness, and they 


his hinds 


made a feast 


To turn the corn to pasture. Once 


At gray Pantannas ere the marriage day, 


again 


Whereto the fair girl Gwen and all her 


The dark green rings grew frequent on 


kin 


the grass, 


Were bidden. It was the wintry 


The gay elves danced, the old melodious 


joyous time 


sounds 


Of Yule-tide and the birth-time of the 


Of song and music gladdened all the 


Lord, 


fields, 


When all hearts, for the sacred season 


And he grew rich and passed in peace- 


glad. 


ful age. 


Make merry in the fading of the year. 


And his sons followed him, and slept in 




peace. 


With mirth had sped the feast; all, 




round the hearth 


But still, M'hen fourscore years or 


Were seated, Gwen and Rhydderch 


more had fled, 


side by side. 


The dread voice came at times, repeat- 


Careless they winged the hours with 


ing still 


tale and song. 



462 



THE CURSE OF PANTANNAS. 



The night was still, there came no 

breath of sound, 
Only without the loud unceasing fall 
Of the full river plunging down the 

rocks, 
Only within the noise of mirth and 

song. 

Then suddenly they seemed to hear 

a voice 
Above the roaring stream. A silence 

fell 
On all the joyous group. Not as the 

voice 
So often heard it came, but seemed to 

wail 
vSome unremembered word. The 

maiden clung 
Close to her lover for a while, and 

then 
The jovial hearth, the jest, the tale, 

the song. 
Chased all their fears, and all was as 

before. 
No sound without but the unceasing 

noise 
Of the full river plunging down the 

rocks. 

Then, swift again, above the sounds 

of mirth, 
Above the river roaring through the 

rocks, 
A clear voice, dreadful, pealed, *' The 

Time is come ! " 
" Daeth Amser ! " thus it wailed. And 

all the guests 
Rose to the door, seeking whence came 

the voice, 
And first the goodman went, his worn 

cheek pale 
With fear, remembering the tales he 

heard 



In boyhood of the voice. Long time 

they stood 
Expecting, but no voice they heard, 

nor sound. 
But the loud river plunging down the 

rocks. 

Till, as they turned them houseward 

once again. 
Above the roaring waters, three times 

heard, 
The same voice pealed, " The Time is 

come ! the Time ! " 
Then they affrighted and in silence 

went 
Within the house, and then a mighty 

noise 
Crashed round them, and it seemed a 

mighty hand 
Shook all to the foundations. As they 

sate 
In fear, without a word, a shapeless hag 
Stood at the casement. Then one, 

bolder, said, 
" Why comest thou, thou loathely 



thii 



And she, 



" Peace, chatterer, I have naught with 

thee. I come 
To tell the doom which waits this 

cursed house 
And that which weds with it. But 

since thy tongue 
Is thus injurious, never will I lift 
The veil that doth conceal it." With 

the word 
She vanished, none knew whither. 

When she had gone, 
And all was still again, the cry, the 

cry. 
Rose loud and ceased not. Then a 

deep affright 
Fell upon all, and gloom. The hour 

grew late, 



THE CURSE OF PANTANNAS. 



463 



And from the hapless house the trem- 


And if the powers of ill have might to 


bling guests 


part 


Went on their lonely ways. Rhydderch 


Our lives awhile, yet am I true to thee. 


alone, 


It: may be some dark ruin waits our 


Grown careless in the flush of innocent 


house 


love, 


For some forgotten wrong ; yet, what 


Delayed his love's departure, till they 


care I ? 


went 


They cannot touch our lives, these 


Alone at midnight down the haunted 


envious powers,' 


vale, 


Nor blight our love. What care I for 


Across the roaring waters. Unafraid 


the rest, 


The lovers fared, nor voice nor shape 


My treasure, having thee ? " 


of ill 


Then, with a kiss, 


Assailed them, undismayed, defying all 


They parted unafraid, and the youth 


The unseen powers of Death and Doom 


passed 


and 111, 


The ceaseless voices and the roaring 


Strong in the virgin mail of mutual 


stream 


love. 


Undaunted, clothed with love, and 




caring naught 


But when the maid was safe within 


For things of earth or air. 


her home. 


But as he sped 


And it was time to part, some livelier 


Across the self-same fields, which long 


sense 


years past 


Of peril took her, and her boding fear 


The ploughshare broke, hard by some 


Burst forth in tender words. "Dearest," 


haunted cave 


. she said, 


Beneath the hill, a ring of fairy green 


" Good-night ! Farewell ! Some sense 


Before him showed, around him bursts 


of coming ill 


of mirth 


Weighs down my heart. If we should 


Came of invisible throats, and silvery 


meet no more, 


sounds 


Or if some long delay should cheat our 


Of elfin music sweet ; and, rapt in love, 


love, 


And thinking careless of his dear alone, 


I will be faithful always, and will wed 


He stepped within the circle, and was 


With thee, and none beside. Ay, 


lost. 


though the powers 


While Time should last, to home, and 


Of ill should part us all our lives and 


kin, and love. 


leave me 




Widowed of thee ! " And he, " P>ar 


For nowhere might his sorrowing 


not, my life. 


parents find 


The Power of Love protects us. If I 


Trace of their son. They searched the 


come not 


country round. 


At once to claim thee, as indeed I 


Through every grove and brake ; they 


hope, 


searched the depths 



464 



THE CURSE OF PANTANNAS. 



Of the loud plunging stream ; but never 


Feeding a deathless hope, and every 


at all 


day, 


They found him. Then, when many 


Morning and evening, when the circling 


weeks had gone, 


sun 


They sought a hermit in his holy cell, 


Burst from the gates of dawn, or sank 


And told him all, the waiUng cry which 


in night. 


rang 


Upon the summit of the scarped rock 


Through the sad night, the loathely 


Would stand, and scan the landscape 


form which came. 


far and near. 


They told him all, and he, with grief 


Seeking her love's return, and, when 


and tears, 


he came not. 


Knowing what judgment must o'ertake 


Descend in grief. Year after year she 


the youth, 


came. 


Though guiltless, bade the mourners 


Till from love's casements her unfalter- 


hope no more 


ing soul 


To see him, whether in life he was or 


Looked dimly, and the gathering snows 


death ; 


of time 


And they, lamenting him as lost, at 


Whitened her chestnut locks, yet still 


last 


she came. 


Lived their old life, and all was as 


Steadfast, nor failed of hope, while yet 


before. 


she could. 


Till, losing not their sorrow, but bent 


Still looking for her love. Until, at last, 


down 


By the old chapel of the Van, they laid 


By weight of time, they passed, and in 


Her mortal body and undying hope. 


the ground 




Were laid, but never again beheld their 


The years slipped by, the undelaying 


son. 


years. 




And one by one they passed, the young 


But Gwen, the gentle maiden, when 


and old 


she knew 


Who knew the story j scarcely one was 


That which had been, and how her 


left 


love was gone. 


To tell of Rhydderch or his fate ; the 


Mourned for him long, and long time 


world 


would lament 


Rolled round upon its course ; young 


The cruelty of fate, but never at all 


lives were born. 


Believed that he was dead, for still she 


Grew ripe, and faded ; many a youth 


held 


and maid 


That he would come again — it might 


Came careless, rapt in love, and read 


be soon, 


the stone 


It might be after years, but still would 


Which told of Gwen, nor knew what 


come, 


powers of ill 


As his word promised. So she dried 


Blighted her life and hope, for never 


her tears. 


more 



THE CURSE OF PANTANNAS. 



465 



The elfin music sounded on the leas 
Since that dread night of Yule. Another 

race, 
With other hopes and fears, was on 

the earth, 
And the old vanished hopes, and fears, 

and loves, 
Were gone, clean gone, like mist upon 

the hills. 
* + * * 

Then, one fair summer morning, 

from the cave 
Where, on that sad night four score 

years ago, 
His footsteps strayed, Rhydderch came 

forth again 
In all the pride of youth. His heart 

beat high 
With love and hope, nor felt he any 

change, 
More than he feels, who, a brief month 

or more. 
Leaves his loved home. His longing 

heart was full ; 
He listened to the joyous notes of song 
Which the gay thrushes sang, as when 

he went 
To meet his love. Slow Nature showed 

no change. 
The old oaks seemed the same, his 

sweetheart's home 
The same, or hardly changed. The 

bitter Past 
Touched him no more, who for the 

Future looked 
And recompense of love. There were 

the graves 
Beneath the yew, where he in happy 

tryst 
Had lingered with his love when moon- 
rise came. 
As soon he should again. "He had 

been ill. 



Entranced, and the good folk who 

tended him, 
He knew not where, made light of the 

long weeks 
Which lay 'tween him and health. 

When he was there 
'Twas Yule-tide, now 'twas May." He 

raised his eyes 
To see if there, where then it used to 

wait, 
A girl's form waited. Something gray 

was there. 
Half-hidden beneath the yew. Was 

it herself ? 
He vaulted o'er the wall, and found— a 

stone 
Gray touched by time, and graven on 

it deep 
In words half-hid by lichen^ the sweet 

name 
Of her he loved, " Died, aged three- 
score years," 
And in some strange year, forty years 

to come. 

Then not so much a sense of grief 

and pain 
Took him as fear. He knew not what 

had been ; 
He knew not what he was. His 

throbbing pulse 
Grew slower at the chill cold touch of 

fate. 
And great perplexity and new-born 

doubt, 
And some half-consciousness of long- 
dead years. 
As of a dream, enchained him. Soon 

he thought 
The mists would vanish, leaving all 

things clear. 
And then the love, the passion of his 

youth 

2 H 



466 



THE CURSE OF PANTANNAS. 



Once more would live again. So, 


To follow him, whether with horse or 


eagerl)^ 


hound. 


He left the place of graves, and took 


All day upon the hills, " Ifan, 'tis I, 


his way 


I have come back, ' Deuvvch yma.'" 


Along the well-known paths, to where 


The high voice 


he saw, 


Through the void space resounding 


In the old spot— the same, yet not the 


clear, at last 


same — 


Echoed to where, within a sunny nook, 


The roof-tree of Pantannas, Not as 


Bent double with the weight of ninety 


yet 


years, 


Had he seen human face, and a new 


There dozed an aged man, half deaf. 


fear 


half blind. 


Came on him, and strange shame, as 


And when he heard, his limbs began to 


of one come 


shake. 


From other air than earth's ; for now 


And he to mutter to himself ; again 


he knew 


It came, the old man trembled to his 


That either he was dazed and weak of 


feet; 


brain, 


The third time came the cry, and then 


Or some great change had passed upon 


in haste, 


his life. 


Tottering, the aged figure, bowed and 


Which nothing but the gaze of human 


bent, 


eyes 


Moved quickly to the door, and there 


And the remembered tones of human 


beheld 


speech 


His long-lost master, fair in youthful 


Might ever again dispel. And so he 


bloom, 


went 


Unchanged, and in his habit as he was 


Up the old path, and gained the well- 


When all the world was young. 


known door, 


The old man's heart 


And in the old room stood again and 


Went out to him, who stood unmoved. 


mused, 


untouched, 


Changed — yet the same ; but human 


Not knowing whom he saw. One word 


face or voice 


alone 


He saw not. All the people were 


He uttered, "Rhydderch." 


afield, 


And with a flash of light 


Nor was there any there to see or hear 


The Tast revealed itself. The youth 


Of those he knew of old. Then, when 


knew all 


the load 


That had been, reading in another's face 


Of silence grew too great, through the 


The unnoted flight of Time. His life 


still house, 


was done ; 


In his high youthful voice, he called for 


He knew it now. All his old longings 


one, 


dead ; 


His childish serving boy, wlio always 


Dust was his love, and all his yearnings 


loved 


dust ; 



TO A GAY COMPANY. 



467 



Dust was his life, and all his body dust. 
No more upon the old earth could he 

bear 
To walk amid the light of garish day, 
And when the white-haired man, with 

tears of joy, 
Would fain have kissed his hand, the 

Life in Death 
Shrank from the Death in Life, and 

fading, left 
Naught but a thin dust, lost in empty 

air. 



Thus side by side they move, the Lives 

of Toil 
And Fancy. What is Fancy but the 

Past 
Or Future, bathed in light which never 

shone. 
Or shall, upon the earth, and yet which 

shows 
Nearer than real Life, and clearer far — 
A Life wherein the terror of the world, 
Its \ mystery, its awe, its boundless 

hope. 
Are plainer than in ours, wherein the 

pang 
Of hopeless longing and unmerited pain ! 
Which vex our thought, the blind un- ! 

equal lot 
Which takes us, find some vague apo- 
logy, 
And hope some dim fulfilment, and the 

ways 
Of Fate are justified, the righteous rise, 
The wicked fall ? Die not, oh sacred 

star 
Of Fancy ! Show us still the charm, 

the awe. 
The glamour of our lives, bitterer 

griefs, 



Joys keener than our own ; loftier 

heights. 
Depths deeper still : keep mystery, 

which is 
The nurse of knowledge, shading from 

the glare 
Of the full noontide sun, our tree of 

Life! 



TO A GAY COMPANY. 

A GRASSY little knoll I know. 
Before the windows of my home. 
Where, when the chill days longer 

grow. 
And the slow Spring has come, 

Forth gleams a golden company 
Of lowly blossoms through the grass, 
Smiling a welcome back to me 
As the soft Spring days pass. 

Daily they take the cloudless sun ; 
With innocent faces free from guile, 
And a sweet yearning never done, 
They look on him and smile. 

And while he shines, the livelong day, 
From early morn to failing light, 
Stands patiently the dense array. 
Content and smiling bright. 

But if cold rain or wintry hail 
Touch them, the careful petals fold, 
Safe where no violence may assail 
Their shining cups of gold. 

Oh, silent, innocent choir ! I seem 
To hear your fairy voices rise. 
Extolling faint, as in a dream, 
Your great Lord in the skies ; 



468 



FROM JUVENAL. 



And read in your wide-opened eyes 
Strange thoughts and human histories, 
Till from your humble lives seems 

grown 
Life fairer than your own. 

Fair celandines, I love to see 
Each year your radiant company 
Bloom golden on the springing grass, 
As the quick seasons pass. 

No careless foot shall come to mar 
Your peaceful lives, while life is mine ; 
Still as the Spring-tide comes shall 

shine 
Each multitudinous star, 

So like the others, and the dead 
Dear blossoms of forgotten Mays, 
The joyous Springs which now are fled, 
The wondering childish days 

When you, a joyous company. 
Or yours, were of an age with me ; 
When marvels filled the earth and sky. 
Nor you could fade, nor I. 

Still shall I seem to hear your voice 
Of joyous praise, though all be still; 
The Spring-time, bidding all rejoice, 
Through you and me shall thrill. 

Whether we be alive on earth, 
Or lying hidden in the mould, 
The Spring shall come with throes of 

birth, 
And clothe the fields with gold. 

And me, whom the same Maker made, 
Shall no renewal touch ? Shall I 
Beyond all hope decay and fade ? 
Deeper than Spring-tide lie ? 



Nay, nay ! the sun shines overhead. 
The Spring -tide calls, the winter's 

done ; 
At last, from close depths dark and 

dread, 
I, too, shall greet the Sun. 



FROM JUVENAL. 

I READ to-day a Poet dead 
In old Rome, centuries ago ; 

Once more returned the days long fled, 
The dried-up waters seemed to flow. 

Once more the keen tongue known in 
youth 
Lashed the gross vices of the time, 
Portraying with a dreadful truth 

The sloughs of sense, the deeps of 
crime. 

Great city of the World ! were these 
All that the race has gained of thee — 

Foul lusts and soulless luxuries. 

Fraud, bloodshed, depths of villany ? 

Was this what we have left of Rome, 
This blood - stained sink of dark 
offence ? 

Nay, still across the ages come 
The high pure tones of innocence : 

' ' Let nothing ever, base to see or hear, 

Pass the chaste threshold where a 

young soul is ; 

The innocence of boyhood, oh, revere, 

Lest what of vileness you conceive be 

his. 

' ' Despise not thou his pure and tender 
youth, 
But let his weakness stand 'twixt 
thee and wrong. " 



IGHTHAM MOTE. 



469 



Not wholly wert thou dumb, dread 
voice of Truth ! 
Nor lost, oh sacred ministry of Song ! 



IGHTHAM MOTE. 

The gray house from the moat around 
Rises four-square ; two white swans 

glide ; 
A falling stream's uncertain sound 
Is heard on every side. 

A home in an untroubled land, 
As 'twas at first it is to-day ; 
Unchanged the hushed quadrangles 

stand, 
Through centuries past away. 

The drawbridge and the entrance tower 
Are still as in those good old days, 
Ere freedom baffled lawless power, 
Which dullards love to praise. 

So old, so gray, so ripe with time — 
Ere the broad cedars on the grass 
Came from some new-discovered clime 
It saw the centuries pass. 

So old and yet so new ; to-day 
Flowers of Japan, in gold and white, 
Its builders dreamt not of, make bright 
Its gradual decay. 

And rounding into leafy bowers 
The laurustinus' bulk is spread ; 
A tall tree bending overhead 
Its delicate wealth of flowers. 

And over every moss-grown stone 
A glamour of the dead is cast — 
The charm of days deceased and done. 
The phantoms of the Past. 



A home, a hundred homes in one. 
Before our English race grew great, 
Before the doughty deeds were done 
Which fixed her glorious fate ; 

Before the dauntless Buccaneer 
From Devon dared the Western seas, 
And drove the sullen Don in fear, 
And robbed his argosies ; 

Before the White Rose and the Red, 
Ere Cregy proved our England's might, 
When scarce the Paynim learnt to 

dread 
The steel-clad Northern knight. 

A hundred tales of good and ill, 
Of love and right, of hate and wrong. 
The joyance and the dole which fill 
The treasure-house of song. 

The old knights with their mail were 

here. 
The dames demure with high-built hair, 
The grave ruffed sage, the cavalier 
Flaunting his lovelocks fair, 

The periwigged and powdered Beau, 
The Dame with hoops and patches 

brave ; 
The generations come and go — 
The cradle and the grave. 

Our grandsires and our granddames 

came ; 
They came awhile, their times are 

dead, 
And we, the modern sir and dame. 
Are reigning in their stead. 

Unchanged the old grange stands, and 

will 
When we in turn are past and gone ; 



470 THE SECRE'l 


' OF THIJNUii. 


The hurrying years flit by us still, 


Thou hast survived. Shall peace o'er- 


Life glides unnoticed on. 


turn 




What banded foemen deigned to spare, 


And what the end? No Goth or 


In some deep hate, when all things fair 


Hun 


In one red ruin burn ? 


Can blot the record of thy past ; 




Shalt thou, unchanged, untroubled, 


Or shall a wider faith and trust 


last 


Bind all, until men recognize 


Till history be done ? 


No good but mutual sacrifice, 




Nor aim but to be just ? 


The peasants spared thee, the long 




shock 


Thou liest within the net of Fate, 


Of warring Roses came not near ; 


Oh ancient England of our love ! 


The Roundhead and the Cavalier, 


Howe'er the circling world may move, 


The King's head on the block, 


Thou art, thou hast been great ! 



THE SECRET OF THINGS, 

Did the Race of men descend from a Nature sublime. 
From a type which is higher than man and almost divine, 

Sinking from higher to lower through reons of time, 
Through a hopeless decay and slow unmeasured decline ? 

Whence came, then, this downward force to degrade what God gave ? 

Can we rest in the thought that we fell from a higher estate ? 
Shall the work of His hand grow v/eaker in time and fade, 

And that which was once above death, sink down to the grave ? 

And if we are born with the seeds of a deep decay. 

Can it ever be stayed, though it were by an Infinite Will ; 

Or are all things fated to fade and diminish away 

Through all stages of lower life till Creation lies still? 

Or if power there be to stay, and willing for good. 
Where then shall be set the limit of gradual shame ? 

Not there, maybe, where we think, nor then when we would. 

And how shall our being reascend to the height whence we came ? 



Or shall this faith rather be ours, that the Infinite Plan 
Is worked by a gradual miracle bettering the Race, 

Since the quickening Spirit breathed on the sea's dead face. 
And the faint life stirred, which one day should blossom in Man ? 



THE SECRET OF THINGS. 47 1 



It were liker, indeed, to the work of an Infinite Might 

To raise all the gradual Past from lower to higher ; 
Nay, but where, were it thus, were there room for the heaven-sent light 

That, 'midst growing darkness shining, could bid us aspire ? 

And what were our profit to rise from the general shame. 
If we knew that the Race were doomed to a deeper decay, 

Or if millions of lives that are past should wither in flame, 
Nor rise from the darkness of Hell to a Heavenly day ? 

And does not all Nature teem, not only with types that ascend, 
But with those their ineffable fates from a higher ideal degrade, 

High archetypes dwindling down, which from higher to lower tend, 
Keen organs, and powers of might, which to feeble energies fade ? 

Great Universe, what is thy Secret, what are thy Laws? 

Do they dwindle through secular time by the power of an Infinite Will ? 
Or do all things to Perfectness tend by a changeless ordinance still, 

Impelled by the upward force of an inborn Beneficent Cause ? 

But if such were the law of things, how then should any ignore 
The self-same embryo growth of man and the lowest ape, 

Which an inborn necessity moulds to such difference of being and shape, 
That one rises to godlike discourse, one lies soulless for evermore ? 

Or shall we believe, indeed, that deep down in the covering earth 
May be found, some day, a trace of a Being that once has been, 

Which in long-dead ceons of time was parent of either birth. 

And, in Nature's gradual scheme, stood centred and fixed between ? 

Can the Individual rise, though the Race sinks down in disgrace, 
And, while all is ruined beside, increase to a heavenly height? 

Can the Individual sink to some dark, ineffable place, 
While the Race rises higher and higher in face of the Infinite Light ? 

Is the soul of Humanity one with the Individual soul? 

Shall each rise with the other or sink, as the suns are illumined or fade? 
Shall the hand of the Maker show weak as the aeons unchangeably roll. 

Grown helpless to stay the wreck of the Cosmos itself hath made ? 

Nay, from out of the House of despair shall be heard a jubilant voice. 
Beneath the deepest depths and hopeless abysses of 111, 

Which in cosmical accents immense, bids all things living rejoice, 
And out of the pit of Hell strive onward and upward still. 



472 



OH, EARTH I—ON A BIRTHDAY. 





Who knows no creeping chill of age, 


OH, EARTH I 


But, rich in all which life endears, 




Keeps still the patriot's noble rage 


Oh, earth ! that liest still to-night 


Through seventy years. 


Beneath the starlit skies, 




How splendid dost thou loom and 


The form unbent, the flashing eye. 


bright 


The curious lore, the wit that cheers, 


To planetary eyes ! 


The scorn of wrong which can defy 




His seventy years ; 


But if some storm-cloud, vast and dark, 




Should hide thee from the day ; 


To whom no wound which mars the 


If through blind night no faintest spark 


state. 


Should force its feeble way, 


No humblest neighbour's grief or tears. 




Appeal in vain for love or hate 


No other would thy face appear. 


These seventy years ; 


Than on this cloudless sky, 




Though all the world should quake 


For whom home's happy radiance yet 


with fear. 


A steadfast beacon-fire appears. 


Though all our race should die. 


Bright through the storms, the stress, 




the fret 


Great Universe ! too vast thou art, 


Of seventy years ; — 


Too changeless and too far. 




Dull grows the brain and chill the 


What else but this? " Brave heart, be 


heart 


strong. 


Before the nearest star. 


Be of good hope ; life holds no fears. 




Nor death, for him who strives with 


Oh, kindly earth ! upon thy breast 


wrong 


For ever let me lie, 


For seventy years. 


Wrapt round with thy eternal rest, 




But gazing on the sky. 


Live, labour, spread that sacred light 




Of knowledge which thy soul reveres ; 




Fight still the old victorious fight 


ON A BIRTHDA V. 


Of seventy years. 


What shall be written of the man 


Live, labour, ripen to fourscore 


Who through life's mingled hopes and 


While still the listening Senate hears ; 


fears 


Live till new summers blossom o'er 


Touches to-day our little span 


These seventy years. 


Of seventy years ; 






Or if a brighter briefer lot 


Who, with force undiminished still, 


Withdraw thee from thy country's 


A Nestor stands among his peers, 


tears. 


Full of youth's fire and dauntless will 


Be sure there is where change is not, 


At seventy years ; 


Nor age, nor years." 



IN A LABORATORY— THE SUMMONS. 



473 



IN A LABORATORY. 

A MOST intelligent dog I took, 
Affectionate, full of caressing grace, 
With something of human love in his 

look, 
And such a trustful, half-human face. 

Had learnt tricks, too — would give you 

a paw 
Where a brother-savant would offer a 

hand, 
Right or left, as you asked him ; could 

understand 
Your speech — it might almost fill one 

with awe. 

Seeing how near to mankind, yet how 

far 
These dumb and pitiful creatures are ; 
How all their faith and belief and love 
Is centred in Man as a Lord above- 

And looking into his eyes for awhile, 
For knowledge is precious and gained 

through pain, 
I bound him down with a pitying smile. 
And deftly removed the left lobe of his 

brain. 

And then, with all that I had of skill, 
I healed it again, so that presently, 
Though lame and sick, in his love for 

me, 
The creature strove to obey my will. 

And when I asked him to give me a paw. 
He gave the left first, but when for 

the right 
I asked, his maimed brain failing him 

quite. 
Gave the left — and I thought I had 

touched a Law. 



So I persevered, and the brute again, 
With a loving, sorrowful look of pain, 
Brought the left paw over the helpless 

right, 
And I marked the effort, with deep 

delight. 

And having pushed knowledge so far, 

again 
I divided the opposite lobe of the brain. 
And the poor brute, though willing to 

offer a paw. 
Could no longer obey — and I grasped 

a Law. 

Later on, still athirst for knowledge, 

once more 
I carved the weak brain, as I did 

before, 
Till the poor dumb wretch, as he lay 

on his side. 
With a loving look regarding me, died. 

Poor brute ! may his pain be for know- 
ledge, and I, 

If I grasp not the clue, yet I may by- 
and-by. 

Strange how weak Man is, and infirm 
of will. 

For sometimes I see him and shudder 
still ! 



THE SUMMONS. 

March 28, 1884. 

Away from love of child and wife, 
From the first flush of ripening life, 
From books and Art, from all things 

fair, 
From homely joys, from public care, 
A low voice summons us away, 
And prince and peasant must obey. 



474 



SILVERN SPEECH. 



Sometimes amid the noonday throng, 
Amid the feast, the dance, the song, 
Amid the daily wholesome round, 
The inevitable accents sound, 
And the ear hears the summons come 
As his who calls the truant home. 

And sometimes in the lonely night 
It sounds and brings with it the light. 
Alone, with none but strangers nigh. 
Comes the cold voice which bids us die ; 
Sudden, or after months of pain, 
And weary vigils spent in vain. 

What shall it bring of profit then 

To have loomed large in the eyes of 

men ? 
Or what of comfort shall endure, 
Save soaring thoughts and memories 

pure ? 
Nought else of thoughts and things that 

be 
Can solace that great misery. 

Oh dreadful summons, full of fear 
For weakling mortal souls to hear ! 
When that last moment shall be ours, 
'Mid failing brain and sinking powers, 
May one great strength our steps 

attend, 
The constant presence of a Friend. 



SILVERN SPEECH, 

There are whom Fate's obscure decree 

Dooms in deep solitude to be ; 

For whom no word that mortal spake 

The sullen silence comes to break ; 

And e'en the music of the Spheres 

Falls only on unheeding ears. 

For them, life's loud processions seem 

A noiseless and unmeaning dream. 



Around their prison, joyous life 
Echoes with noise of fruitful strife. 
Yet, to their cells no sound may come, 
But all the universe is dumb. 
Ah ! strange that while all things 

rejoice 
Man only should be wanting voice ! 
Ah ! strange that morning-song of bird 
By living ears is never heard ! 
Nor mighty master-music dim. 
Nor Heaven-thrilled note of soaring 

hymn. 
Nor rippling laugh of happy child, 
Nor the Deep's thunder-voices wild I 
Unreached by life's tumultuous sound 
Even as the dead, beneath the ground. 
And still, though all creation groan, 
Unmoved in loneliness alone. 
Ah, cruel fate ! unequal doom 
That sinks the innocent in gloom ! 
What first the depths of chaos stirred 
But the Ineffable Spoken Word ? 
What else our inmost souls can reach 
Like that Divinest Gift of Speech ? 
Ah, hapless fate that thus deprives 
Of half their life unconscious lives ! 
Ah ! could a soft compassion gain 
To soothe the victim's lonely pain ! 

What if with knowledge, love combined, 
Can wake the undeveloped mind. 
And without speech or sound can teach 
The use of sound alike and speech ; 
To those dumb solitudes profound 
Convey some blessed ghost of sound, 
And kindle from the dormant sense 
Bright sparks of new intelligence ; 
Assist the undeveloped brain 
New loftier summits to attain. 
Till knowledge grow the guide of 

love, 
And love turned Heavenward point 

above ; 



THE OBELISK. 



475 



And the illumined soul confess 

The innate love of Righteousness ! 

Surely a miracle it is 

Which works so blest a change as this ! 



THE OBELISK. 

Upon the river side, 

Above the turbid stream, 

Which rolls on, deep and wide ; 
Strange as a dream, 

The obelisk defies 

Its dim unnumbered years. 
Facing the murky skies, 

Their snows, their tears. 

Three thousand years it stood 
Upon the sweet, broad Nile, 

And watched the gliding flood, 
The blue skies smile. 

And many a century more. 
Where it of old would stand, 

It lay half covered o'er 
By the hot sand. 

Now with signs graven deep, 
In this our Northern Isle, 

Where the skies often weep 
And seldom smile, 

Once more again it rears 
Its dim, discroAvned head, 

Though all those countless years 
Its life is dead. 

Forgotten is the lore 

Its mystic symbols keep ; 

Its builders evermore 
Sleep their last sleep. 



Amid this Northern air. 
Beyond the slorm-tost sea, 

Where earth nor sky is fair. 
Why shouldst thou be ? 

Standing amidst the strife. 
The modern city's roar, 

Memorial of a life 
Dead evermore, 

And of the end of all 

That shows to-day so strong, 
The greatness that shall fall, 

After how long ? 

The city which to-day 

Shows mightier than thy own. 
Which yet shall pass away, 

Like thine o'erthrown. 

And thou? W^here shalt thou be 
When Time has ruined all, 

And Faith and Empery 
Together fall ? 

Shalt thou at last find rest 
Beneath the river's flow, 

And mark upon its breast 
New ages grow ? 

Or shall some unborn race 
Take thee as prize of war. 

And set thee up to grace 
New cities far? 

Or shall our Northern frost, 
Our chill and weeping skies, 

Sap thee, till thou art lost 
To mortal eyes ? 

The Past it is, the Past 

Whose ghost thou comest here ; 
The years fleet by us fast. 

The end draws near. 



476 



A SONG OF EMPIRE. 



But while the Present flies 
The far-off Past survives ; 

It lives, it never dies, 
In newborn lives. 

It lives, it never dies, 
And we the outcome are 

Of countless centuries 
And ages far. 

What if our thought might see 
The Future ere it rise. 

The ages that shall be, 
Before our eyes ; 

And if incorporate, 

Graven by some mystic hand, 
Our hieroglyph of Fate 

By thine might stand ? 

Nay, nay, our Future shows 

Implicitly in thee ; 
For well the thinker knows 

What was, shall be. 

And though a ghost thou art, 
'Tis well that thou art here 

To touch each careless heart 
With hope and fear. 



A SONG OF EMPIRE. 

June 20, 1887. 

First Lady of our English race. 

In Royal dignity and grace 

Higher than all in old ancestral blood, 

But higher still in love of good, 

And care for ordered Freedom, grown 

To a great tree where'er 

In either hemisphere. 

Its vital seeds are blown ; 



Where'er with every day begun 
Thy English bugles greet the coming 
sun ! 

Thy life is England's. All these fifty 

years 
Thou from thy lonely Queenly place 
Hast watched the clouds and sunshine 

on her face ; 
Hast marked her changing hopes and 

fears ; 
Her joys and sorrows have been always 

thine ; 
Always thy quick and Royal sympathy 
Has gone out swiftly to the humblest 

home. 
Wherever grief and pain and suffering 

come. 

Therefore it is that we 

Take thee for head and symbol of our 
name. 

For fifty years of reign thou wert the 
same. 

Therefore to-day we make our jubilee. 

Firm set on ancient right, as on thy 
people's love. 

Unchecked thy wheels of empire on- 
ward move. 

Not as theirs is thy throne ' 

Who, though their hapless subjects 
groan, 

Sit selfish, caring not at all, 

Until the fierce mob surges and they fall, 

Or the assassin sets the down-trod free. 

Not such thy fate on this thy jubilee, 

But love and reverence in the hearts of 
all. 

Oh England ! Empire wide and great 
As ever from the shaping hand of fate 
Did issue on the earth, august, large 
grown ! 



A SONG OF EMPIRE. 



477 



What were the Empires of the past to 

thine, 
The old old Empires ruled by kings 

divine — 
Egypt, Assyria, Rome ? What rule 

was like thine own. 
Who over all the round world bearest 

sway ? 
Not those alone who thy commands 

obey 
Thy subjects are ; but in the boundless 

West 
Our grandsires lost, still is thy reign 

confest. 
"The Queen " they call thee, the young 

People strong, 
Who, being Britons, might not suffer 

wrong, 
But are reknit with us in reverence for 

thee ; 
Therefore it is we make our jubilee. 

See what a glorious throng they come. 
Turned to their ancient home. 
The children of our England ! See 
What vigorous company 
Thou sendest. Greater England of the 

Southern Sea ! 
Thy stately cities, sown with domes 

and spires, 
Chase the illumined night with festal fires 
In honour of their Queen, whose happy 

reign 
Began when, 'mid their central roar. 
The naked savage trod the pathless 

plain. 
Thousands of miles, North, South, 

East, West, to-day, 
Their countless herds and flocks un- 
numbered stray. 
Theirs are the vast primceval forest 

depths profound ; 
Yet everywhere are found \ 



The English laws, the English accents 

fair, 
'Mid burning North or cooler Southern 

air. 
A world within themselves, and with 

them blent 
Island with continent. 
The green isles, jewels on the tropic 

blue, 
Where flower and tree and bird are 

strange and new ; 
Or that which lies within a temperate 

air 
As summer-England fair ; 
Or those, our Southern Britain that 

shall be, 
Set in the lonely sea. 
Lands of deep fiord and snow-clad 

soaring hill, 
Where-through the ocean-currents ebb 

and fill. 
And craters vast, from which the 

prisoned force 
Of the great earth-fires runs its dreadful 

course. 
And vales of fern and palm, whence 

rising like a dream 
High in mid-heaven, the ghostly ice- 
fields gleam. 

And from her far and wintry North 
The great Dominion issues forth. 
Fit nurse of stalwart British hearts and 

strong ; 
From her black pine woods, deep in 

snow, 
Her billowy prairies boundless as the 

sea, 
Where on the sweet untroubled soil 
Yearly the unnoticed, countless wild- 

fiowers blow. 
And by men's fruitful and compelling 

toil 



478 



A SONG OF EMPIRE. 



Yearly the deep and bounteous harvests 

grow ; 
From the lone plains, o'er which the 

icy wind 
vSweeps from the North, leaving the 

Pole behind ; 
In whose brief summer suns, so fierce 

they shine, 
Flourish alike the apple and the vine ; 
From teeming ancient cities bright and 

fair, 
Whether in summer's heat or frosty 

wintry air. 
Stamped Vv'ith the nameless charm and 

grace 
Of a more joyous race ; 
Or on the rounding prairie nestling 

down 
Homestead and frequent new-built 

town. 
Even to those ultimate wilds where 

comes to be 
Another Westminster on the Pacific 

Sea. 

Nor shall thy Western Isles 
Be wanting, where the high green 

breakers fall 
Upon the torrid shore, and nature 

smiles ; 
And yet sometimes broods over all. 
Thick woods and hot lagunes with 

steaming breath, 
A nameless presence with a face of 

death. 
Fair balmy Isles, where never wintry 

air 
Ruffles the scentless tropic blossoms 

fair. 
Upon whose sun-warmed fruitful soil 
Our father's dusky freedmen toil. 
Lands of bright plumes that flash from 

tree to tree, 



Long creepers trailing thick with 

brilliant bloom, 
And loud upon the forest's silent 

gloom 
The plunging surges of the encircling 

sea. 

And from the ancient land 
Scorching beneath the strong unfailing 

sun. 
Round thee thy unnumbered subject 

millions stand ; 
From many a storied city fair, 
Old ere our England, first begun, 
From marble tomb and temple white, 
Built ere our far forefathers were. 
And still a miracle defying Time ; 
Palaces gray with age and dark with 

crime, 
Fierce superstitions, only quenched in 

blood. 
And sweet flower-fancies yearning 

towards the light. 
And lustral cleansings in the sacred 

flood, 
Where by dim temple cod), or shaded 

street, 
From hill or parched plain the wayworn 

pilgrims meet. 

And from the unhappy Continent 

Which breeds the savage and the 
slave— 

From our enormous South, there shall 
be sent 

A scanty band of strong self-governed 
men. 

And from those poisoned swamps, to- 
day a grave, 

But which one day shall smile with 
plenty, when 

The onward foot of Knowledge, slow, 
sublime. 



A SONG OF EMPIRE. 



479 



Has traversed her and set her children 

free 
From ocean to her fabulous inland 

sea, 
And the fierce savage, full of kingly 

grace, 
Is father of a gentler race, 
And peaceful commerce heals the 

wounds of Time, 
And the long history of blood and pain 
Comes nevermore again. 

And nearer to thee still, and_dearer 

yet, 
Thy people of these little Northern 

Isles, 
Who never shall their Queen forget, 
Nor be forgotten, vi'hether Fortune 

smiles 
Or armM Europe storm around. 
Whom none assail, beyond the waves' 

deep sound, 
Behind their surge-struck ramparts safe 

and free. 
These are thy closest subjects, these 
The brain and heart of Empire, as thy 

Rose 
Within its close-ranged petals comes to 

hold 
A perfumed heart of gold. 
Wherein the seed of the miraculous 

flower. 
Safe hid, defies Fate's power. 
And most of all thy wondrous mother- 
town 
Upon our broad Thames sitting like a 

crown, 
Who, 'mid her healthful labour' laden 

air, 
Grows every day more fair ; 
Whom not for fairness do her children 

prize. 
But for her gracious homely memories — 



A nation, not a city, the loved home 
Whereto the longing thoughts of exiled 
Britons come ! 

What is it that their voices tell ? 
What is it that in naming thee they 

praise ? 
Not wider empire only ; that is well. 
But there are worthier triumphs, 

peaceful days, 
Just laws, a people happier than before. 
And rolling on untroubled evermore. 
With larger stream, and fuller and more 

free 
The tide of ordered liberty. 
These things than empire higher are, 
Higher and nobler far. 

Our old Draconic Law 
With children's blood cemented, no 

more kills 
Its tale of innocent victims. Pitying 

Love 
Amid the abjects deigns to-day to 

move 
Whom no man cared for. If the cruel 

city 
Still claims its thousands, by the out- 
casts stand 
Pure men and women in a gentle band, 
Linked in a ministry of Love and 

Pity. 
No more the insensate State 
Binds down the worker, to exaggerate 
The unequal gifts of Fate, 
But comes instead, some care for 

common good. 
Some glimmering sense of growing 

brotherhood. 
No more half deafened by the unresting 

loom, 
Soulless as is the brute, the pallid 

children pine ; 



48o 



A SONG OF EMPIRE. 



Nor hapless slaves, half naked, 'mid the 

gloom 
And grime and squalor of the sunless 

mine, 
The young girl-workers coarsen, but all 

take 
Some modest gleam of knowledge, 

which may breed 
The faith that is above, yet under, 

every creed, 
And of these humble lives, one day 

shall make 
True citizens indeed. 

Nor shall thy peoples' voice 
Keep silence of the salutary change 
Which brought the gift of fullest 

freedom down 
To humble lives, whether by field or 

town ; 
The potent gift, and strange, 
Which wakes alone the wider civic 

sense. 
Which, more than knowledge, sobers 

heart and mind, 
And rich and poor in closer ties can 

bind, 
And knits a nation firm in harmony ! 
Let civil broils and fiercer dissidence 
Come — we are one. What care have 

we ? 
In speech, in action, we are free. 
No mob law need we fear, or senseless 

anarchy, 
And for all these rejoice. 

What law for us has done. 
For all our greater England 'neath the 

sun, 
Let us do now, building on high a 

State 
Of half the World confederate ! 



Sure, 'twere the noblest victory of 

mind 
Thy scattered realms to bind ; 
To guide the toiling, hopeless feet 
To where is work for all, and life is 

sweet ; 
To teach our millions their great 

heritage. 
To call together high world-councils 

sage, 
Strong as the Priest's, in this our 

island-home ; 
Then, though the armed world shall 

come. 
What care, what fear, have we, 
Who, being free, are one ; and, being 

one, are free ? 

If all the wide Earth brings our 

millions food, 
And if our navies whiten every sea, 
If we have rest and wider brotherhood, 
All these began with thee ; 
And shall, if Heaven so will, still more 

increase 
With thy remaining years, till blessed 

Peace, 
Half frighted from us now by grave 

alarms 
Of half a world in arms. 
Shall brood, a white-winged Angel, 

o'er the Earth. 
Then may the rule of Wrong be 

done ! 
Then may a new and Glorious Sun 
Gild the illumined World ! and then 
Come Righteousness to men ! 

Three sovereigns of our English line 
Have reached thy length of rule, each 

of his name the third. 
But never England's heart was stirred 
By those as 'tis by thine. 



A SONG OF EMPIRE. 



481 



Our Henry died lonely and girt with 

foes ; 
Our greater Edward fell in dotage ere 

life's close ; 
And he thy grandsire knew a troublous 

time, 
A dim pathetic figure ! full of pain 
And care too great for mortal to 

sustain, 
And in his rayless sorrow grown 

^^' lime ! 

Three Queens have swayed 

Our England's fortunes — great Eliza- 
beth. 

In whose brave times the blast of war 

Blew loud and fierce and far. 

Her dauntless sailors dared the un- 
bounded West, 

And fought the Armada's might, and 
did prevail, 

And wheresoe'er was seen an English 
sail 

Her Empire was confest ; 

And round her gracious throne immortal 
flowers of song 

Bloomed beautiful, bloomed long, 

And left our English tongue as sweet 
as it was strong. 

And when a century and more had 

passed 
In blood and turmoil, came a Queen 

at last. 
Her soldiers and her sailors once again 
Conquered on tented field and on the 

main, 
And once more rose the choir of song ; 
Not as the Elizabethan, deep and 

strong, 
But, tripping lightly on its jewelled 

feet, 
Issued politely sweet. 



And Shakespeare's tongue and Milton's 

learned to dance 
The minuet of France. 

And now again once more 
A Queen reigns o'er us as before ; 
Again by land and sea 
We cast the chequered sum of victory. 
Once more our English tongue 
Wakes to unnumbered bursts of song. 
A great choir lifts again its accents fair. 
And to those greater singers, if we find 
To-day no answering mind, 
'Tis that too large the Present fills the 

view, 
Yet has its great names too. 
Part of the glorious fellowship are we. 
The great Victorian company, 
Which, since old Caedmon's deep voice 

carolled strong. 
Through England's chequered story 

bore along 
The high pure fire of the world's 

sweetest song. 

But not in the increase 

Of Empire, or the victories of peace, 

Chiefly we seek thy praise. 

But that thy long and gracious days, 

Lived in the solitude that hems a throne, 

Since thy great sorrow came and left 
thee lone, 

Were ever white, and free from thought 
of blame. 

Not once in thy long years shadow of 
envy came 

On thee, or him, whose stainless man- 
hood bore 

Thy love's unfading flower. Never 
before 

In all our England was a royal home 

Whereto the loving thoughts of humble 
hearts might come. 

2 I 



482 



TEMPERANCE. 



Thy children's children stand around 


Nigh half the wide, wide earth is ours 


thy knees, 


in fee ! 


Their children come in turn as fair as 


And where her rule comes, all are free. 


these ; 


And therefore 'tis, oh Queen, that we, 


Thy people and thy children turn to 


Knit fast in bonds of temperate liberty. 


thee, 


Rejoice to-day, and make our solemn 


Knit all in one by bonds of sympathy 


jubilee ! ! 


With thee, our Queen, are we ; 




Therefore we make our solemn jubilee ! 






TEMPERANCE. 


Flash, festal fires, high on the joyous 




air ! 


Whoso can rule his soul 


Clash, joy-bells ! joy-guns, roar ! and. 


In prudence still j 


jubilant trumpets, blare ! 


Who can his heart control, 


Let the great noise of our rejoicing 


His thought, his will ; 


rise ! 
Gleam, long-illumined cities, to the 


Whom, temperate in all, 


skies 


Labour and play, 


Round all the earth, in every clime. 


No low desires enthral 


So far your distance half confuses time ! 


Nor lead astray ; 


As in the old Juda?an history. 




Fling wide the doors and set the 


Seeking the golden mean, 


prisoners free ! 


To Duty vowed, — 


Wherever England is o'er all the world, 


Ay, though black depths between 


Fly, banner of Royal England, stream 


Roar dark and loud ; 


unfurled ! 




The proudest Empire that has been, to- 


He shall new pleasures find, 


day 


More fruitful far 


Rejoices and makes solemn jubilee. 


Than for the undisciplined 


For England ! England ! we our voices 

raise ! 


And sensual are ; 


Our England ! England ! England ! in 


A kingdom absolute. 


our Queen we praise ! 


A wider sway 


We love not war, but only peace, 


Than his whom myriads mute 


Yet never shall our England's power 


And blind obey. 


decrease ! 




Whoever guides our helm of State, 


For in his soul one voice 


Let all men know it, England shall be 


Alone is heard, 


great ! 


Which bids his being rejoice. 


We hold a vaster Empire than has 


One perfect word. 


been ! 




Nigh half the race of man is subject to 


Stronger than heated youth, 


our Queen ! 


Mightier than wrong — 



THE IMPERIAL INSTITUTE. 



483 



The Godlike voice of Truth, 
A constant song. 

Silence all discords loud 

Within the breast ! 
Fly from the troubled crowd 

To peace and rest ! 

And let the enfranchised soul, 

From self set free, 
Find in Right's dread control 

True Liberty ! 



THE IMPERIAL INSTITUTE. 
An Ode. (July 4, 1887.) 

With soaring voice and solemn music 

sing ! 
High to Heaven's gate let pealing 

trumpets ring ! 
To-day our hands consolidate 
The Empire of a thousand years : 
Delusive hopes, distracting fears, 
Have passed and left her great. 
For Britain, Britain, we our jubilant 

anthems raise. 
Uplift your voices all : worthy is she of 

praise ! 

Our Britain, issuing at the call of P^ate 
From her lone islets in the Northern 

Sea, 
Donned her Imperial robe, assumed her 

crowned state, 
Took the sole sceptre of the Free ; 
'Mid clang of arms her crescent glory 

rose. 
By shattered fleet and flaming town : 
Victorious at the last o'er all her foes, 
Embattled rolls her splendid story 

down. 



Soldier and seaman, side by side, 
Her strong sons, greatly dared and 

bravely died. 
Close on their steps her dauntless 

toilers went 
O'er unknown sea and pathless conti- 
nent, 
Till when the centuries of strife were 

done 
They left the greatest Realm beneath 

the sun. 
Praise them and her ; your grateful 

voices raise. 
Mother of Freedom ! thou art worthy 

of our praise ! 

No more we seek our Realm's increase 
By War's red rapine, but by white- 
winged Peace ; 
To-day we seek to bind in one, 
Till all our Britain's work be done — 
Through wider knowledge closer grown, 
As each fair sister by the rest is known, 
And mutual Commerce, mighty to 

efface 
The envious bars of Time and Place, 
Deep-pulsing from a common heart 
And through a common speech ex- 
pressed,— 
From North to South, from East to 

West, 
Our great World Empire's every part : 
A universal Britain, strong 
To raise up Right and beat down Wrong. 
Let this thing be ! who shall our Realm 

divide ? 
Ever we stand together. Kinsmen, side 
by side ! 

To-day we would make free 
Our millions of their glorious heritage. 
Here, Labour crowds in hopeless 
misery, — 



484 



DAVID GIVYN. 



There, is unbounded work and ready 

wage. 
The salt breeze, calling, stirs our 

Northern blood, — 
Lead we the toilers to their certain 

good ; 
Guide we their feet to where 
Is spread for those who dare 
A happier Britain "neath an ampler 

air. 
Uprise, O Palace fair ! 
With ordered knowledge of each far- 
off land 
For all to understand ! 
Uprise, O Palace fair, where for the 

Poor shall be 
Wise thought and love to guide o'er 

the dividing sea. 



First Lady of our British race ! 

'Tis well that with thy peaceful Jubilee 
This glorious dream begins to be. 
This thy lost Consort would ; this 

would thy Son, 
Who has seen all thy Empire face to face 
And fain would leave it One. 
Oh, may the Hand which rules our Fate 
Keep this our Britain great ! 
We cannot tell, we can but pray 
Heaven's blessing on our work to-day. 
Uprise, O Palace fair, where every eye 

may see 
This proud embodied Unity ! 
For Britain and our Queen one voice 

we raise, — 
Laud them, rejoice, peal forth : worthy 

are they of praise ? 



DAVID GIVYN. 



David Gvvyn was a Welshman bold who pined a slave in the hulks of Spain, 
Taken years since in some mad emprise with Francis Drake on the Spanish 

main. 
Long in that cruel country he shared the captive's bitter and hapless lot ; 
Slowly the dead years passed and left him dreaming still of the days that were 

not. 
Of tiny Radnor, or stately Brecknock, or Cardigan's rain-swept heights may 

be. 
Or green Caermarthen, or rich Glamorgan, or Pembroke sitting on either 

sea. 
Sickening within his squalid prison, while still as the circling seasons came 
The fierce sun beat on the brown Sierras, springtide and summer and autumn 

the same, 
Almost hope failed the dauntless sailor, chained in an alien and hateful land, 
Lonely and friendless, starved and buffeted, none to pity or understand, 
Pining always and ageing yearly as slow Time whitened and bowed his head, 
While longing and hate burned high and higher as life sank lower and hope fell 

dead, 
With brutes for his gaolers, and fiends for his fellows, chained to him ceaselessly 

night and day. 
Eleven autumns, eleven winters wasted their wearisome length away. 



DAVID GWYN. 485 



Then there awoke round his floating prison clang of hammers and bustle of men ; 

Shipwrights labouring late and early woke old thoughts in his heart again. 

" Spain will lay waste your heretic island with fire and sword ere the winter be 

come, 
And you and the rest of your felon crew shall row the galleys which sack your 

home." 
The hot blood flushed to the prisoner's forehead, but never a word in reply 

said he, 
Toiling obediently days and weeks till the great fleet sailed on the summer sea ; 
Splendid galleons towering skyward with gilded masts and with streamers brave, 
Floating proudly to martial music over the blue Lusitanian wave, 
Four great galleys leading the van, and in one midst the close-thronged benches 

sate 
David Gwyn, a forgotten oarsman, nursing a burning heart of hate. 



So along the windless ocean slow the great Armada sped, 

Two unclouded weeks of summer blazed the hot sun overhead. 

Hourly from the high deck-pulpits preaching rose and chant and prayer. 

And the cloying fumes of incense on the brisk Atlantic air ; 

Courtiers fine and sea- worn sailors jesting the slow hours away. 

Silken sails and blazoned standards flapping idly day by day, 

And within his high poop-turret, more than mortal to behold. 

The High Admiral Medina lounging idly, clothed with gold : 

Not a thought of peril touched them, not a dream of what might come, 

Proudly sailing, sure of conquest, with the benison of Rome, 

And far down among the oarsmen's benches, fainting, desperate, 

David Gwyn, a patriot helpless with a burning heart of hate. 

With the roaring Bay of Biscay louder winds and greyer skies, 
And the galleons plunge and labour, and the rolling mountains rise ; 
Blacker loom the drifting storm clouds, fiercer grow the wind and sea. 
Far and wide the galleons scatter, driving, drifting helplessly. 
Higher mount the thundering surges ; tossed to heaven, or fathoms down, 
Rear or plunge the cumbrous galleys while the helpless oarsmen drown. 
Like a diver the Diana slides head first beneath the wave. 
Not a soul of all her hundreds may her labouring consorts save. 
Now to larboard, now to starboard, shattered, tost from side to side, 
Helpless rolls the great Armada, shorn of all its pomp and pride. 
Down between those toppling ridges, groaning, straining in his place, 
David Gwyn among the oarsmen sits with triumph in his face. 

Then amid the roaring seas, when hope was gone and death was near, 
And the hearts of all the Spaniards sinking, failing them for fear, 



486 DAVID GWYN. 



Boldly to the haughty Captain, David Gwyn the oarsman went, 

Veiling with a fearless frankness all the depth of his intent. 

*' Quick, Seiior ! the ship is sinking ; like her consort will she be, 

Buried soon with slaves and freemen, fathoms deep beneath the sea. 

Give me leave and I will save her ; I have fought the winds before. 

Fought and conquered storms and foemen many a time on sea and shore." 

And the haughty Captain, knowing David Gwyn a seaman bold, 

Since upon the Spanish main the foemen sailed and fought of old. 

Answered, turning to his prisoner: '* Save the ship, and thou shalt gain 

Freedom from thy life-long fetters, guerdon from the Lord of Spain." 

Then from out the prisoner's eye there flashed a sudden gleam of flame, 

And a light of secret triumph o'er his clouded visage came. 

Thinking of his Cymric homestead and the fair years that were gone. 

And his glory who should save her from the thraldom of the Don. 

" I will save your ship," he answered ; "trust me wholly, have no fear : 

Pack the soldiers under hatches ; leave the main deck free and clear." 

Doubting much the Don consented ; only, lest the slaves should rise. 

By each oarsman sat a soldier, watching him with jealous eyes. 

Little knew he of the cunning, secret signs, and watchwords born 

Of long years of cruel fetters, stripes and hunger, spite and scorn. 

Little thought he every prisoner as in misery he sate 

Hid a dagger in his waistband, waiting for the call of Fate. 

David Gwyn, the valiant seaman, long time battled with the main, 

Till the furious storm- wind slackened and the ship was safe again. 

Sudden then he gave the signal, raised his arm and bared his head. 

Every oarsman rising swiftly stabbed his hapless warder dead, 

Seized his arms, and, fired with conquest, mad with vengeance, like a flood 

On the crowded 'tween-decks bursting, left the Spaniards in their blood. 

David Gwyn was now the Captain, and the great ship all his own ; 

Well the slaves obeyed their comrade, thus to sudden greatness grown. 

Straight for France the stout Vasana shaping, sudden on her lee 

Don Diego in the Royal, foaming through the stricken sea, 

Driven by full four hundred oarsmen, nigh the monstrous galley drew. 

Then from out her thundering broadside swift the sudden lightning flew ; 

In among Gwyn's crowded seamen straight the hurtling missiles sped ; 

Nine strong sailors in a moment lay around their Captain dead, 

David Gwyn, the dauntless Captain, turning to his comrades then — 

"God has given you freedom ; earn it : fear not ; quit yourselves like men. 

Lay the ship aboard the Royal: free your comrades and be free." 

The strong oarsmen bent, obedient, rowing swiftly, silently. 

Till, as if in middle ocean striking on a hidden rock, 

All the stout Vasaim^s timbers, quivering, reeling with the shock, 



SONG. 



487 



Straight on board the crowded Royal \eB.\>\. that band of desperate men, 
Freed the slaves, and left no Spaniard who might tell the tale again ; 
And the sister galleys stately with fair winds sped safely on. 
Under David Gwyn, their Captain, and cast anchor at Bayonne. 
And King Henry gave them largesse, and they parted, every one 
Free once more to his own country, and their evil days were done. 

David Gwyn to England coming won the favour of the Queen ; 
Well her Grace esteemed his valour in the perils that had been. 
What ! had those swift, mighty galleys, which could wind and tide defy, 
Winged with speed the slow Armada when our weak fleet hovered by ? 
Had not then that sullen quarry, ploughing helpless on the plain, 
Turned and crushed the nimble hunters, and rewrit the fate of Spain ? 
Who shall tell? But his were doughty deeds and worthy lasting fame, 
Though the country he delivered never yet has known his name. 

Did he seek again the home of his youth, did he let the years go peacefully by, 
Breathing the sweet clear air of the hills, till his day was done and he came to die ? 
By tiny Radnor, or stately Brecknock, or Cardigan's rain-swept heights may be, 
Or green Caermarthen, or rich Glamorgan, or Pembroke sitting on either sea? 
Did he dream sometimes 'mid the nights of storm of those long-dead years in the 

hulks of Spain, 
That stealthy onset, that dread revenge, with the wild winds drowning the cries 

of pain ? 
Did the old man shudder to think of the blood, when the knife pierced deep to 

the Spaniard's heart ? 
Nay, to each of us all is his Life assigned, his Work, his Fate, his allotted Part 



SOiVG. 

Farewell ! farewell ! Adown the 
ways of night 

The red sun sinks, and with him takes 
the light ; 

O'er the dull East the gathering shadows 
grow. 

And turn to gray the Western after- 
glow. 



Farewell ! farewell ! But Day shall 

come again ; 
Shall hope then die, and prayers be 

breathed in vain ? 
Our faithful hopes outlive the fleeting 

day ; 
Stronger than Life and Death and Time 

are they. 

Ah ! see the last faint ray has ceased to 

flame. 
Courage ! our parted souls are still the 

same. 



488 THE ALBATROSS— IN A GREAT LADY'S ALBUM. 



Round is the earth, and round the 

estranging sea, 
And Time's swift wheel which brings 

thee back to me. 

Come back ! Come back climbing the 

Eastern sky ! 
Our souls are deathless though our flesh 

shall die. 
Winged are our thoughts, and flash forth 

swift and far 
Beyond the faint light of the furthest star. 

Come back ! or if we meet in some 

strange place, 
On some dim planet, I shall know thy 

face; 
By some weird land, or unimagined sea, 
I shall not be afraid, dear, having thee. 



THE ALBATROSS. 

Upon the lone Australian shore, 
A chance-sent traveller's careless eye, 
Saw a white bird swoop down and lie 
With wide wings that should soar no 
moie. 

A feeble quiver shook the bird, 
A film the glazing eye o'erspread ; 
Once more the pearly plumage stirred. 
And then the Albatross was dead. 

He spread the giant pinions wide, 
When 'neath the snowy down he found 
By hands unknown securely bound, 
A sea- worn missive safe and sound. 

And when the blotted page he read. 
This message bore it from the sea — 
"Five shipwrecked sailors, mourned as 

dead, 
A thousand miles from land are we ; 



"Whoe'er thou art whose hand shall 

take 
Our poor winged messenger, we pray 
That thou wilt spare him for our sake, 
And send him scatheless on his way. 

" Hardly we hope our words shall find 
Response, save by some blessed chance ; 
Good friend who readest this be kind. 
And speed us to our well-loved France." 

The traveller stood and musing read, 
Some new-born pity filled his breast, 
Seeing that poor envoy lie at rest. 
The living speaking thro' the dead. 

And soon to save those helpless men, 
A stout ship, many a weary mile 
Sailed forth, and found their lonely isle. 
And sped them to their homes again. 

But I, as o'er this tale I stay 
My wandering fancy, seem to hear, 
A voice which comes my heart to cheer, 
A silent voice which seems to say, 

"Thus is it with the world around. 
For tho' the messenger be gone. 
Some winged thought with his being 

bound. 
O'er all the world goes echoing on. 

" And though its tones sound faint and 

weak, 
Lost in the rude world's clamorous strife, 
The message of dead lips can speak 
To souls in prison, words of life ! " 



IN A GREA T LAD rs ALBUM. 

Flit softly. Muse, on hesitating wing, 
Through this fair pleasaunce, vowed to 
Prince and King. 



ON A SILVER WEDDING. 



489 



Here, ranged apart, as in some leafy 

glade, 
Monarchs and statesmen court the 

grateful shade ; 
Poets and warriors side by side are 

found, 
And the grove echoes with harmonious 

sound. 
Science, with steady gaze and tranquil 

eye, 
And Faith triumphant soaring to the 

The immemorial East delights to bring 

Its tribute to the clear Castalian spring. 

Where'er we stray some nobler foot has 
trod, 

And the awed gazer knows a demi- 
god. 

Dreadst thou with daring pinion to in- 
vade 
The solitudes for finer natures made ? 
Nay, halt not ! Spread thy wings and 

raise thy song ! 
Better the feebly right than basely 

strong ? 
Thou, too, art like to these, and with 

them one 
In nature, as the star is with the Sun. 
Mere whoso greatly daring enters in, 
This truth shall learn, " the whole wide 

world is kin." 
From Prince to boor, old F^ast, and 

larger West, 
One Truth, one Right, one W^isdom is 

confest ; 
One hate of Wrong, one love of nobler 

Thought ; 
One reverence for the universal Ought ; 
One worship of the one pervading Name, 
Through varying voices heard and yet 

the same I 



ON A SIL VER WEDDING. 

March 10, 1888. 

The rapid tide of gliding years 
Flows gently by this Royal home, 
Unvexed by clouds of grief and tears 
Its tranquil seasons come. 

To one, as happy and more great. 
Came earlier far, the dread alarm, 
The swift immedicable harm. 
The icy voice of Fate. 

The gracious father of his race 
Heard it, too soon, and dared the night ; 
Death coming found him with the light 
Of Sunshine on his face. 

He left his widowed Queen to move 
Alone in solitary sway, 
Alone, through her long after-day. 
But for her people's love. 

Their saintly daughter, sweet and mild, 
Drew poison from her darling's breath ; 
Their young son trod the paths of death 
Far, far from love and child. 

Nay, now by the Ausonian sea. 
Daughter of England, good and wise ! 
Thou watchest, with sad anxious eyes, 
Thy flower of chivalry ! 

But this fair English home no shade 
Of deeper sorrow comes to blot. 
No grief for dear ones who are not. 
Nor voids which years have made. 

One sickness only, when its head 

Lay long weeks, wrestling sore with 

death, 
And pitying England held her breath 
Despairing, round his bed. 



490 



ON A SILVER WEDDING. 



No regal house of crowned state, 
Nor lonely as the homes of kings 
Where the slow hours on leaden wings 
Oppress the friendless great. 

But lit with dance and song and mirth, 
And graceful Art, and thought to raise, 
Crushed down by long laborious days, 
The toiler from the earth. 

Its Lord an English noble, strong 
For public cares, for homely joys, 
A Prince among the courtly throng, 
A brother with his boys. 

Who his Sire's footsteps loves to tread. 
In prudent schemes for popular good ; 
And strives to raise the multitude. 
Remembering the dead. 

And having seen how far and wide 
Flies England's flag, by land and sea, 
Would bind in willing unity 
Her strong sons side by side. 

Its gentle mistress, fair and sweet, 
A girlish mother, clothed with grace, 
-With only summer on her face, 
Howe'er the swift years fleet. 

Who was the Vision of our youth, 
Who is the Exemplar of our prime, 
Sweet Lady, breathing Love and Truth, 
With charms which vanquish Time. 

Good sons in flowering manhood free, 
Girls fair in budding womanhood, 
An English household bright and good, 
A thousand such there be ! 

Great Heaven, how brief our Summers 

show ! 
And fleeting as the flying Spring ! 



The almonds blush, the throstles sing, 
The vernal wind-flowers blow. 

And yet 'tis five-and-twenty years, 
Since those March violets dewy-sweet, 
Were strewn before the maiden's feet. 
Amidst a people's cheers. 

And mile on mile the acclaiming crowd 
Surged round her, as the soft Spring air 
With joy-bells reeled, and everywhere 
Roared welcome deep and loud. 

While this, our trivial life to-day, 
Loomed a dim perilous landscape 

strange. 
Hid by thick mists of Time and Change, 
Unnumbered leagues away. 

Long years ! long years ! and yet how 

nigh 
The dead Past shows, and still how far 
The Future's hidden glimpses are 
From mortal brain and eye. 

What secrets here shall Time unfold ? 
What fates befall this gracious home ? 
Shall to-day's festal once more come, 
Ripened with time to gold ? 

Heaven send it ! Close-knit hearts are 

here. 
Not that old hate of sire and heir ; 
Here flourish homely virtues fair, 
And love that conquers fear. 

For these may Fortune grant again 
Their Sovereign's large and blameless 

life, 
Unmarred by care, undimmed by strife. 
Less touched than Hers by pain ! 



THE INVINCIBLE ARMADA, 1588. 491 



High set above the noise and dust 
Of Faction, and contented still 
To guide aright the popular will, 
By sympathy and trust ! 



Through civic wisdom temperate. 
And forethought for the general need, 
Keeping midst change of politic creed, 
A Throne, a People great ! 



THE INVINCIBLE ARMADA, 1588. 

'Tis a fair eve at midsummer, three hundred years ago, 
Drake and his bold sea captains all are out on Plymouth Hoe ; 
They are busy at bowls, brave gentlemen, with jovial mirth and jest, 
When watching eyes spy far away a sail upon the West. 

A sail ! ten sail ! a hundred sail ! nay nigh two hundred strong ! 
And up the sea they swiftly climb in battle order long ; 
Their high main-royals rake the skies, as in a crescent wide, 
Like a thick wood, full seven miles broad, they sail on side by side. 

There is swift alarm and hurry then, but never a thought of fear. 
As the seamen, with the falling night, behold the Don draw near. 
" Ring out the bells," cries Hawkins, and across the darkling main, 
England peals out defiance to the gathered hosts of Spain. 

They do not fear the Don, not they, who on the Spanish main, 
Have fought his might and lowered his pride, again and yet again ; 
And yet 'tis fearful odds they face, when they sail forth to meet, 
Spain and her great Armada with the puny English fleet. 

And the streets grow thronged with seamen, and the crowds begin to shout. 
And quick oars dash and sails are set, before the stars come out. 
They weigh their anchors with a will, and out they speed to sea, 
Where up the Channel, stately, slowly, forge the enemy. 

Now St. George for merry England, and St. James for Papal Spain, 

Our seamen are our chiefest hope, nor shall we trust in vain. 

We have quenched the fires of Smithfield, and no more, 'fore God, we swear. 

Shall they ever again flame upward, through our sweet, free, English air. 



Now when they neared the foeman, as he loomed across the sea. 
Lord Howard led the English van, a Catholic Lord was he, 
And his great Ark Royal thundered out her broadsides loud and long. 
With Drake and Frobisher hard by, and heroes in a throng. 



492 THE INVINCIBLE ARMADA, 1588. 

But never a gun the Spaniards fired, but silent ploughed and slow, 

As bisons in a sullen herd across the prairies go ; 

And behind them close, like hunters swift, with hounds that snarl and bite, 

The English squadrons followed through the breezy summer night. 

They could see the Dons' high lanterns, in a brilliant crescent flare, 
They could catch the Black Friars' moaning chant upon the midnight air. 
All night they pressed them close, and ere the sun began to fllame, 
Long miles away,' by blue Torbay, the warring galleons came. 

Soon as the dawn began to glow, the guns began to roar, 
All day the thundering navies fought along the Dorset shore, 
Till Portland frowned before them, in the distance dark and grim. 
And again the night stole downward, and the ghostly cliffs grew dim. 

And already, praised be God, who guides the patriots' noble strife, 
Though not an English flag is lost, and scarce an English life, 
De Valdez yields his ship and sword, and into Weymouth Bay, 
They tow Oquenda's burning bark, the galleon of Biscay. 



Day fades in night, 'mid stress of fight, and when to waking eyes. 
Fresh water's ghostly sea cliffs, and the storm- worn Needles rise, 
From a score of sheltered inlets on the smiling Solent sea, 
England comes forth to aid her sons, with all her chivalry. 

There sails my Lord of Cumberland, and he of Oxford too, 
Brave Raleigh and Northumberland, and Grenville and Carew. 
As to a field of honour hasten knights of deathless fame. 
To meet the blue blood of Castile, the flower of England came. 

Then with the wind, the foe faced round, and hissing o'er the blue, 
Forth from his lofty broadsides vast his hurtling missiles flew ; 
Long time the fight confusedly raged, each man for his own hand ; 
St. George ! protect our country, and the freedom of our land ! 

See here round brave Ricaldes thick the English levies press ! 

See there the keels from London town, hemmed round and in distress 

Such thunder sure upon the seas was never heard before. 

As the great ordnance smite the skies with one unceasing roar I 



Now when the fifth day of the fight was come, St. James's Day, 
The sea was like a sheet of glass, the wind had died away, 



THE INVINCIBLE ARMADA, 1588. 493 



And from out the smoke clouds looming vast, churning the deep to foam, 
Driven by three hundred oars the towering galliasses come. 

But ere they neared the English line,'a furious iron hail 
Of chain-shot and of grape-shot crashed through mast and oar and sail ; 
No more they could, they turned and fled, upon our English sea, 
Not yet such furious hatred raged, or stubborn bravery. 

And upon the steep white walls of cliff and by the yellow sand, 

With pike and musket hurrying down the sturdy peasants stand. 

And the trembling women kneel and call upon the Holy name, 

And watch the thick black cloud which bursts in murderous jets of flame. 

Now St. George for our old England ! for the Don has turned and fled, 
With many a strong ship sunk or burnt, and gallant seaman dead. 
And by the last day of the week, the warring squadrons lie, 
The foeman moored in Calais roads, the English watching by. 

They sent for aid to Parma, for they were sore beset, 

But the Duke was at St. Maiy's shrine, and could not succour yet, 

For by Nieuport and by Dunkirk, stern, immovable as Fate, 

With stalwart ships, and ordnance strong, the Dutchmen guard the gate. 



Now that great Sabbath dawns at last, and from the foeman's fleet, 
The deep mass-music rises, and the incense sickly-sweet, 
And beneath the flag of England, stern, with dauntless hearts and higli, 
The seamen take the bread and wine, and rise prepared to die. 

Then came Lord Henry Seymour, with a message from Her Grace, 
And Sir Francis read the missive with grave triumph on his face, 
And he sware an oath, that come what would, her orders should be dune 
Before the early rose of dawn proclaimed the coming sun. 

And the summer daylight faded, and 'twas midnight on the wave, 
And among the close-moored galleons, all was silent as the grave, 
And the bright poop lanterns rose and fell with the breathing of the deep 
And silent rode the towering hulls, with the weary crews asleep. 

When two brave men of Devon, for Sir Francis bade them go. 
With all sail set before the wind, stole down upon the foe ; 
And before the drowsy watchmen woke, the swift destruction came, 
As with a blaze of wildfire leapt the fireships into flame ! 



494 THE INVINCIBLE ARMADA, \\ 



Then from the close-thronged ships of Spain loud cries of terror rise, 
As from their burning ranks the glare flares upward to the skies, 
With cables cut, and sails half set, they drift into the night, 
And many are crushed, and many burn, and some are sunk outright. 

And the watchers on the Dover Cliffs know well what thing has been, 
And for noble England cheer aloud, and for her Maiden Queen. 
No more, no more, great England, shalt thou bow thy head again 
Beneath the Holy Office and the tyranny of Spain ! 

And the conquering English followed, and upon the Flanders shore, 
Hopeless the shattered galleons fought, till fight they could no more. 
And some went down with all their crews, and some beat helplessly 
Upon the yeasty quicksands of the perilous Northern Sea. 

Then Sidonia with the remnant, shattered ships and wounded men, 
Fled northward, with the foe in chase, hoping for Spain again ; 
But by the Orkneys, lo ! the Lord blew with a mighty wind. 
And on the cruel Irish West they left two score behind. 

And the savage kerns of Desmond, when the stormy winds were o'er, 
Robbed the thronged corpses of the great, upon the lonely shore. 
There, in his gold-laced satins, lay the Prince of Ascule, 
'Mid friars, and seamen drowned and dead, and Dons of high degree. 

Or faint with hunger and with thirst, though rescued from the wave. 
The haughty Spaniards knew in turn the misery of the slave. 
They ate the captives' bitter bread, they who brief weeks ago 
Sailed forth in high disdain and pride to lay our England low. 

And the scattered remnant labouring back to Spain and life again. 
Left fourscore gallant ships behind and twice ten thousand men ; 
And when in dole and misery this great emprise was done. 
There was scarce a palace in all Castile which did not mourn a son. 



Let not their land forget the men who fought so good a fight ! 

Still shall our England keep undimmed their fame, their memory bright. 

And if again the foenien come in power upon the main, 

May she find sons as strong as those who broke the might of Spain ! 



ODE SUNG AT THE FIRST CO-OPERATIVE FESTIVAL. 495 



ODE SUNG AT THE FIRST CO- 
OPERATIVE FESTIVAL. 

August 17, 1888. 

Come let us sing together a new song, 
The triumph of the weak made strong ; 
The victories of peace we celebrate, 
Not those of war and hate. 
The victories of peace, won after many 

days : 
Let us our voices tune to joy and 

praise ; 
Come let us sing a new and happy 

song ! 

Time was when by his too-great toil 

bowed down, 
The worker feared his master's frown ; 
For some scant wage chained to his 

hopeless task. 
Nor ever dared to ask 
For his young lives and piteous gains 

afraid, 
A fitting share of that his hands had 

made ; 
But now through union strong, the 

workers claim their own. 

There is red war not fought with sword 

or gun. 
Where, in deep peace, war's wrong is 

done ; 
Where face to face in hostile camps 

they stand 
Who should clasp hand with hand : 
The rich man waning slow in soulless 

ease. 
The poor man spent by toils and 

miseries. 
Sing we a cheerful song, Time's curse 

is almost done. 



Ay, almost done, but ah ! not wholly 
yet ; 

Let not too sanguine souls forget 

Those for whom no man taketh thouglit 
or heed, 

The hearts, the lives that bleed. 

Let not our workers, strong in brother- 
hood, 

Forget the friendless toiler's starving 
brood. 

Mixt be our song with joy, yet not all 
cheerful yet. 

Yet for to-day, at least, let us rejoice. 
Uplifting jubilant heart and voice. 
Not what has been we hymn, but what 

shall be ; 
Not the old misery. 
But the new days when Man beneath 

the power 
Of peaceful union blooms a perfect 

flower — 
For this we choose not sorrow, but 

rejoice. 

Wc come to-day in this our solemn 
mirth. 

Bringing the flowers, the fruits, of earth, 

Reared by strong hands which labour 
glorifies. 

Toil, honest toil we prize — 

Look round and see how rich the har- 
vest grows, 

The mellow fruits, the perfumed rose 
that glows 

Raised by untiring toil from our good 
mother Earth. 

See how to-day the long drawn vistas fill 

With fruit of every toiler's skill, 

The man's strong gains, the woman's 

deft and fine ; 
Here heart and brain combine 



496 rO JOHN BRIGHT. 


In pitying succour for the weak and 


Of thy young love, thou didst accept 


dumb ; 


thy part 


Here are fair schemes, to build the 


To strike the shameful fetters from 


happy home, 


the slave. 


And children's work, and play, than 


To lift the toiler from his hopeless 


work more precious still. 


lot, 




To plant the civic sense where it 


Therefore do we make merry and are 


was not. 


glad ; 




No care to-day shall make us sad. 


Thy soul was reared on fitting food ; 


We sing the song of wider brotherhood, 


thy tongue. 


Knit close for general good. 


Touched with our older England's 


We sing the higher social sense which 


purest fire ; 


binds 


The noblest strains our Island Muse has 


Each for the general good, opposing 


sung, 


minds. 


Shakspeare and Milton did thy 


We hail thee, blessed Union, and are 


speech inspire ; 


glad! 


The poets taught thy rhythmic 


And sing aloud together a new and 


periods strong ; 


cheerful song ! 


And thy impetuous flights were 




winged with song. 


TO JOHN BRIGHT. 


Thou couldst not brook the faithless 


MARCH 27, 1889. 


souls that dread 




To follow Right and leave the rest to 


Friend of the friendless else, and art 


God; 


thou dead ? 


No selfish fear of careless riches bred 


Great Master of our vigorous Saxon 


Might turn thee from the path by 


speech. 


Duty trod. 


Unwearied pleader for the people's 


England thou lovedst, and beyond 


bread, 


set of sun 


Hater of war, strong to convince and 


A greater England still, and both 


teach, 


made one ! 


With passionate faith and indigna- 




tion strong, 


Thy friend and comrade went his way 


Mighty to slay the hydra-heads of 


alone ; 


wrong. 


Long years ago God called him, and 




he went. 


Thy voice was aye for Freedom, and 


To him thy speech has reared, than 


thy heart 


sculptured stone. 


Warlike for Peace, since o'er the open 


A statelier and more lasting monu- 


grave 


ment. 



ON ROBERT BLAKE— TO LORD TENNYSON. 497 



Long time were ye reviled, scorned, 

hated ; now 
A people's homage crowns each 

reverend brow. 

Champion of Freedom, by thy hearse 
shall I 
Keep silence — I who owe thee much 
indeed ? 
A Prince among the People comes to 
die, 
And shall no grateful son of verse 
take heed ? 
Nay, on thy grave, ere falls the 

earth, I lay 
This simple wreath to deck thy 
honoured clay ! 



ON ROBERT BLAKE. 

Engraved on the Brass in St. 
Margaret's, Westminster. 

Kingdom or Commonwealth were less 
to thee 

Than to crown England Queen o'er 
every sea. 

Strong sailor, sleeping sound as sleep 
the just. 

Rest here ! our Abbey keeps no wor- 
thier dust ! 



TO LORD TENNYSON: 

On his Eightieth Birthday, 
August 6, 1889. 

Master and seer ! too swift on noise- 
less feet 
Thy hurrying decades fleet with 
stealthy pace ; 



Yet not the less thy voice is clear and 
sweet, 
And still thy genius mingles strength 

with grace. 
On thy broad brow alone and 
reverend face 
Thy fourscore winters show, not on thy 
mind. 
Stay, Time, a little while thy head- 
long chase ! 
Or passing, one Immortal leave behind ; 
For we are weak, and changeful as the 
wind. 

For him long since the dying swan 
would sing, 
Thedead soul pine in splendid misery. 
He winged the legend of the blameless 
King, 
And crossed to Lotusland the en- 
chanted sea ; 
Heard the twin voices strive for 
mastery. 
Faithful and faithless ; and with pre- 
scient thought 
Saw Woman rising in the days to be 
To heights of knowledge in the past 

unsought ; 
These his eye marked, and those his 
wisdom taught. 

And he it was whose musing ear o'er- 
heard 
The love-tale sweet in death and 
madness end ; 
Who sang the deathless dirge, whose 
every word 
Fashions a golden statue for his 

friend. 
May all good things his waning years 
attend 
Who told of Rizpah mourning for her 
dead ! 

2 K 



49S 



TO HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN. 



Or in verse sweet as pitying ruth 

could lend 
The childish sufferer on her hopeless 

bed; 
Thoughts, pure and high, of precious 

fancy bred. 

Mis it is still to scan with patient eye 
The book of Nature, writ with herb 
and tree ; 
The buds of March unfold, the lush 
flowers die. 
When sighs of Autumn wail o'er land 
and sea. 
And those great orbs which wheel from 
age to age, 
Cold, unregarding fires that seem to 
blight 
All yearning hope and chill all noble 
rage ; 
And yet were dead, and void, maybe, 

of light, 
Till first they swam upon a mortal's 
sight. 

Master and friend, stay yet, for there is 

none 
' Worthy to take thy place to-day, or 

wear 
Thy laurel when thy singing-days are 

done. 
As yet the halls of song are mute and 

bare, 
Nor voice melodious wakes the tune- 
less air. 
Save some weak faltering accents faintly 

heard. 
Stay with us ; 'neath thy spell the 

world groAvs fair. 
Our hearts revive, our inmost souls are 

stirred, 
And all our English race awaits thy 

latest word ! 



TO HER MAJESTY THE 
QUEEN, 

Revisiting Wales. 

August 24, 1889. 

Welcome, dear Lady, welcome once 

again. 
To thine own land — nor for the last 

time come. 
Small is our Gwalia, but a fair domain. 
Who comes to her comes home. 
Come now and often, still our warm 

hearts burn, 
Though the swift winters close or dim 

the eyes 
That saw thee last ; to thee our spirits 

turn, 
Still to our lips true words of welcome 

rise. 
Dear Lady ! welcome, welcome home ! 
Our Cymric eyes grow bright to see 

our Sovereign come. 

Once long ago, didst thou, a careless 
child , 

With smooth young brow on which the 
Imperial Crown 

Weighed not as yet, amidst our hill- 
sides wild 

Abide, and with thine own 

Didst spend thy Springtime's joyous 
hours and bright, 

Safe-guarded by a mother's tender care. 

Then all the unfolding world showed 
clear and fair 

To thy unwearied mind and eager sight ; 

Ah ! it is blest indeed to be 

In life's young morn with all fair things 
to see ! 

And then thou earnest to thy Wales 

once more 
In happy wedlock, by the knightly arm 



VENITE PROCIDAMUS, 



499 



Of thy new Arthur, sheltered safe from 

harm, 
By Menai's sounding shore. 
Strong in Love's strength, as one who 

seemed to bear 
A potent talisman to shield from 

ill. 
But what defence averts the stroke of 

care, 
Or blunts the shafts of Heaven's mys- 
terious will ! 
Grief dwelt with thee long time, but 

now 
The crown of Resignation decks thy 

brow. 

Dear Lady, we are feeble folk, and 

weak, 
But our old tongue and loyal hearts we 

keep ; 
We cherish still the love we may not 

speak — 
The old affection deep. 
Still is our Wales "a sea of song," and 

still 
From smiling valley, and from soaring 

hill, 
Eryri's snows and fair Clwyd's verdant 

plain, 
Or that strange shrine upon the Western 

Main, 
There comes a universal voice 
Of welcome to our Queen, bidding all 

hearts rejoice. 



VENITE PROCIDAMUS. 

Our hopes, our fears, 
Our love and hate. 

Our joys and tears, 
Our throws with fate, 



What are they all but phantoms fleeting 

past. 
Weak creatures of a day, which but a 

day may last ? 

But the great Scheme 
Fares on its course 
Thro' Time's long dream 
Of changing force. 
It saw the plesiosaur and mastodon 
Wax strong, and dwindle down, and 
still goes silent on. 

It saw the ape 

Rule every land, 
The cave-man shape 
Flints for his hand . 
It saw a thousand generations pass 
Across life's mournful stage, like visions 
in a glass. 

It saw the strange 

Forgotten Kings, 
Ages of change. 
Terrible things, 
It saw the Egyptian and Assyrian come, 
The gay Hellenic bloom, the rugged 
sway of Rome. 

These too it saw 
Totter and fall, 
A purer law 
O'er-ruling all. 
And then the arrested march, the long 

delay. 
The baffled hope, the Dawn fading to 
.common day. 

It makes no cry, 

It lifts no voice, 
Tho' all things die, 

Tho' all rejoice, 



500 



VENITE PROCIDAMUS. 



It goes unceasing onward, blind and 




Is only heard 


dumb, 




By the inner ear, 


Nor halts, nor hastes, nor heeds what- 


No outward light it is which can 


ever things may come. 




illume 




The 


spiritual eye, and pierce the en- 


Eternal Scheme, 




shrouding gloom. 


Great Lord of all, 






August, Supreme, 




An inborn light, 


Prostrate we fall, 




An inner voice. 


We cannot know Thy working, nor its 




Which burneth bright, 


end. 




Which doth reioicc. 


Nor by what hidden paths Thy Perfect 


A Faith in things unseen, an inward 


Will may tend. 




sight 




Which thro' a wrecked world sees the 


But if one word 




victory of Right. 


Might come, or sign, 






Our souls were stirred 






To growths divine, 




With this our guide, 


No longer should we walk in fear and 




Our strength, our stay, 


doubt, 




No more aside 


Like children in dark ways, before the 




Our footsteps stray. 


stars come out. 


Fulhl 


Thyself, Great Scheme, Eternal 
Plan, 


Ah no ! the word 


Work 


out— we ask no word — the 


The soul can hear 




Destiny of Man. 



THE END. 



PKINTKD BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES. 



